Time Share
by Hyena Cub
Summary: While Frank and Joe are stuck at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, a strange storm brings shocking results.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Hardy Boys. I am making no money off of this fanfiction.**

**Chapter 1**

The rain poured down, hammering onto the ground, turning the normally smooth concrete into a flat, roiling, raging sea. The black clouds overhead covered a greenish sky, glimpsed only in flashes as the clouds clashed and seethed across it. Lightning seemed to split the sky itself, and even through the thick panes of glass in the windows, the thunder was loud. Great, gray hulks of metal lurked near the windows, motionless and cold: planes that normally would have left for other cities were it not for the summer storm that had decided to rage across the Midwest.

Joe Hardy sat in an uncomfortable chair by the nearest window, gazing morosely out at the rain, cursing it every once in a while under his breath. Normally he would relish the opportunity to sit and watch such a storm; he loved thunderstorms under most circumstances, and the more violent, the better. But not tonight. Tonight he sat, not at home, but in the plastic chairs of an airport terminal, alternately cursing the storm that was delaying his and Frank's return home, and wondering if the people who had designed the chair he was sitting in had ever worked for the Inquisition.

"Some storm," said Frank quietly, looking up from his magazine to per out of the huge, plate-glass window. He didn't look entirely thrilled, himself, but he wasn't fidgeting like Joe was, nor so blatantly letting his displeasure be known. "I've never known one to last quite this long."

"Yeah," said Joe disgustedly, huffing against the back of his chair and letting himself slump down. "It's been pretty constant, too...I'm beginning to think we shoulda chartered an ark, not a plane."

Frank chuckled, tickled by the comment, but Joe wasn't laughing. He was serious; this storm was like nothing he had ever seen in his entire seventeen years of life, and had been raging full force for at least two and a half hours. It began as their plane was on its final approach into the tiny Omaha airport, and hadn't let up since.

About fifty other travelers were sitting much as Joe was, spread across the terminal, or wandering among the little shops (though most were closed), or investigating the various vending machines. The in-flight meal had been served there in the terminal, and several apologies had been made for their inconvenience and discomfort.

"At least we weren't caught _in_ the plane when it began to get really bad," said Frank.

"I guess...bet there were plenty of people who were, though. Hope they're okay...no planes have made it here since it began. Tell me again why we couldn't just wait for a direct flight from California? Why we had to stop through Nebraska?"

Frank didn't answer; he knew Joe wasn't really asking; he was just making a point. Their flight had been paid for by their client, and it was really stupid to spend hundreds of money on a plane ticket when it wasn't necessary. "I'm just surprised that the tornado sirens haven't gone off yet," said Frank. "It's summer; they get a lot of tornadoes out here."

Joe nodded disgustedly, looking back out into the rain, aware that he was dangerously close to sulking. He didn't care. As the younger brother he felt it was his right to sulk every once in a while. But a sudden sound caught his attention and he blinked, frowning, leaning closer to the glass to hear it better. A little chill went down his back as he caught the discordant warble of a powerful siren, then turned slowly to look at Frank. "Um..."

Frank looked taken-aback, wincing as an announcement came over the intercom just above them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a tornado warning issued for Douglas County. Eppley Airport Terminal personnel will be directing you to the downstairs shelters. Please follow in an orderly manner, and remain calm."

Joe shot his brother a sideling glance as they both stood up, grabbing up their carry-on bags, and following the general exodus from the terminal. "You don't happen to be descended from Nostradamus, do you?"

Frank laughed a bit bemusedly. "Not that I know of. Besides, if I am, that means you are, too."

The two of them were silent as everyone began tromping down the stairs leading to the lower level of the airport, heading for the designated tornado shelters along with everyone else. Joe suddenly felt like a cow or a sheep, and quashed the urge to be a wise guy and start mooing as he was prodded along.

Still, that had been pretty creepy. Coincidence, of course, but it was a lot easier to get spooked when the sky outside was green, the air dark and stormy, and you were stuck inside some little airport in Omaha, Nebraska at night with nothing but your overnight bag and your older brother. Joe was suddenly very glad Frank _was_ there.

There was no basement at the Omaha airport; everyone ended up sitting against a sturdy stone wall in the middle of the lower floor, watched by alternately bored and anxious looking airline employees. Joe would much rather be outside watching the tornado, but he knew there was no way they were going to allow that. If he'd been of age, maybe. And who knew how long they'd all have to sit here?

Feeling glum, Joe sat cross-legged, one elbow on his knee, his face in his hand, and thought about the case that had brought them to California to begin with. It had all begun with a very strange news report.

---

"Hey, Joe!" came Frank's voice from downstairs.

Joe, on the way to his room to listen to a new CD he'd gotten the day before, peered downstairs into the living room. Frank was sitting on the couch, his bare feet propped up on its arm, and their father, Fenton Hardy, was sitting in the nearby armchair. "What is it?" he asked. It was nine o'clock, so he figured Frank was probably watching the news. He did that as often as not, but Joe had little interest in it.

"Hurry, even you'll be interested in this!"

Joe scowled with mild indignation, the phrase "even you" rankling just a bit, but he was still curious. Affecting only the barest outward interest, Joe leaned against the wall behind the couch and watched. When Fenton said that it related to a case that Joe and Frank might be going on the very next day if they were willing, Joe's interest grew.

Five minutes later, he was hooked; Frank had certainly called this one right. The subject was black holes, and the reporter was standing in the middle of some street in Council Bluffs, Iowa, according to the white words at the bottom of the screen. Joe had clearly missed some of the report, but what he heard was very interesting.

It was the beginning of summer, and the day in Iowa looked like it was just as hot as New York summer days could get. A flat, uninteresting building was the backdrop for the man' report, a building Joe would have sworn started out life as a school building except for the observatory dome at one end. The sign proclaimed it to belong to "Mid-America Physics and Astronomy". A lab, Joe figured.

"...have already succeeded in duplicating some effects using magnets and vacuums," the reporter was saying, "though they can give no details of their experiments. Now they are gearing up towards 'the real thing,' creating an actual, miniscule-scale black hole in their laboratory. Here to speak to us on this subject is Cori Fletcher, one of a team of five scientists heading up this project."

The camera panned to a very short woman with bright red hair and a winning smile. She was dressed in a lab coat with cartoon characters on it, and Joe laughed in surprise. He didn't think scientists were allowed to wear anything but blinding, white coats when they worked in the lab. "Thanks, Mr. Harrigan. Well, of course we're not allowed to give away much detail of our work, but we can say that we are very confident that we will be able to succeed in creating a black hole. Of course, with all of the safety precautions we have to take, things are progressing quite slowly. To compress an object large enough to have an easily-discernible pull of gravity...well, it'll take us a while. But we're getting along nicely."

"Perhaps you could tell our viewers, Ms. Fletcher, exactly what a black hole is."

The woman grinned, and it was clear that it was a subject she could talk for hours about, given half the chance...kinda like Phil and his computers, or Chet and his current hobby-obsession. "Be glad to, Mr. Harrigan. A black hole is a thing that was, recently, mere speculation. Theory. But no longer. Black holes exist, and there are even different kinds, classed by size. There are galaxy-size holes...those we don't know as much about as we'd like, but we can see their effects. And star-sized. Supermassive, and stellar-mass. Those names are a bit misleading to the layman, because mass and size are not the same thing. Size, of course, being how big something is, and mass being how much..._stuff_...there is in any given object."

Joe began to zone out of the woman's explanation...she might be a brilliant scientist, but she surely sucked the big one when it came to talking and explaining. It seemed to be that way with scientists. Joe almost asked what this had to do with their next case...surely they weren't going looking for black holes...but decided not to. Frank and their dad were both listening intently to the woman's technical prattle.

Once the interview was wrapped up, Frank turned off the television, grinning excitedly. "That's really something," he said. "I can't imagine the idea of a miniature black hole sitting in some kind of laboratory."

"Okay," said Joe. "I don't get all of what she said. There're two kinds, that's all I really got. A big and a small kind. But they dunno as much about the big kind."

"Exactly," said Fenton. "A 'stellar-mass' black hole is made by a very large star beginning to die, going nova, then beginning to collapse in on itself. Only a very large star is big enough to collapse in on itself enough to create a black hole."

"Why?" asked Joe. "Wouldn't a small object just make a small black hole?"

"It could," said Frank. "But not on its own. Something else would have to do the compressing. It's like your bookbag, Joe." Joe blinked, wondering how the heck his bookbag related to stars. "See, you stuff it to the top, and it all just stays there, stuffed to the top."

A corner of Frank's mouth was tweaked in a barely-concealed smirk, and Joe raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms and gazing levelly at Frank. "Yes," he agreed.

"For you to make more room in your backpack, you would have to use your strength and weight to cram it all down at the bottom. Cramming that same amount of papers, books, and assorted weird junk into a smaller area." Fenton chuckled, and Joe rolled his eyes. "But imagine," Frank went on, "that your backpack was a hundred-thousand times bigger. Instead of just threatening to take over the world, as it does now, it's a world unto itself. Now all that stuff is a lot heavier, and it would begin crushing itself down by itself, collapsing under its own weight."

Joe finally laughed, shaking his head and heaving a great, long-suffering sigh at the teasing. "Yeah, okay, thanks," he said. "So a huge star collapses on itself, but smaller ones aren't heavy enough."

"That's it," said Frank, grinning now. "And the bigger start collapse until they're just this tiny bit of mass floating around the universe. All the mass of a huge star in something that's hundreds of times smaller than it used to be. It's got all the _gravitational pull_ of that star...in a small area."

"That's why things get sucked into it if they get too close," said Joe wonderingly. "Like if something gets too close to Earth, Earth's gravity pulls it in."

"Yep! You've just about got the hang of it. Once you pass the point of no return...past the safe-orbiting distance...you get sucked in."

Joe felt a little ill. "And they're trying to _make_ one of these?"

Fenton broke in then, his mild baritone serious, though a bit of a smile still lingered on his face. "A very small one, Joe. Something with the gravitational pull of a small asteroid, say, not a star hundreds of times bigger than our sun. Very small things could get sucked in, but I would say that humans are pretty safe."

Joe relaxed a little bit. He supposed that was a little better, but it was still a pretty creepy thought. "So...what does this have to do with a case? We're not gonna be investigating this project, are we?"

"No," said Fenton seriously. "That's all top secret. Even I don't know much more than what they've told here. No, yours is a missing person. One of the scientists working on this project, in fact, has gone missing. Hiram McDougal. Not the lead scientist, but neck-deep in the project. He was last seen in Los Angeles, California, where he attended a convention of scientists to discuss the project, and has not been seen since. He has been missing for about two days...was reported just this morning by the folks at the lab."

"Where's the lab, again?" asked Frank.

"It's in Iowa, actually, near the border. All farm country out there. Out of the way of the lights and the towns, an observatory, and the lab facility where they're doing their experiments."

Creepy or not, Joe found that he was eager to take on this case...and besides, since when had he _not_ liked creepy things? "Let's go for it!" said Joe with a grin. "Maybe I can get some surfing in..."

The case hadn't turned out to be anything hugely difficult at all. They got almost the entire story in California, where they talked to several of the scientists who had attended the conference. As the conference had only ended the day before the boys' arrival, many of the participants were still there, most of them with rooms in the hotel that had hosted the conference.

Hiram McDougal had gotten a phone call from a man who worked for an independent lab in Missouri, wanting to join forces with McDougal's team to work on the black hole project. When McDougal refused, he said that the man who had contacted him "threatened" him. One of the people who was the most help was a security guard for the hotel, who spoke of McDougal with mild contempt, saying , "He got some phone call, and it got him all hyped up about something. Said his life was being threatened, and he needed a safe place to hide out for a few days."

"Ya know," Joe muttered, "This guy knows nothing of hiding out." If Frank and Joe had so easily tracked him down this far... And then, as a perfect end to the whole farce, the guard named the hotel the man had been sent to. The guard himself had suggested the motel because it was away from the city proper, which was what McDougal wanted. And so the boys were able to track him down with very little effort.

McDougal turned out to be a tall, thin, nervous sort of a man, and Joe wondered if he was just jumping at shadows. After asking him a whole lot of questions, Frank was also of the opinion that McDougal simply misinterpreted something the man from Missouri had said, and hidden out at that hotel at the edge of the city for two days, afraid to make contact with anyone. He "freaked", as Joe put it, indulging in "creative paranoia."

Still, Joe wanted to check out the rival lab just to be safe, but Frank pointed out that their job had been to find McDougal, and they'd done just that. "We can have Dad check 'em out later,' Frank had said, "but for now let's just get McDougal back."

They'd contacted their father and Mid-American Physics and Astronomy, telling them that the man would be on his way back on the private plane he'd taken to San Francisco. (On McDougal's insistence, the Hardys checked the pilot and the chartering service out thoroughly before agreeing to go), and the lab had insisted they pay the Hardys' way back to New York.

And so they had accompanied Hiram McDougal on the puddlehopper plane to Eppley Airfield in Nebraska, where a representative from the labs had picked up McDougal, who looked thoroughly relieved that the whole thing was over. The Hardy brothers were given tickets from Nebraska to New York, McDougal's business card, and the thanks of Mid-America Physics and Astronomy...

---

...and now they were sitting on a cold tile floor, with their backs to a boring, white wall, waiting out a tornado.

"That guy was a complete chickenguts, you know that?" Joe Hardy said quietly.

Frank, apparently having delved into his own deep thought, blinked and turned to Joe. "Hm?"

"That McDougal guy. Can you really believe he was being threatened?"

Frank frowned, shaking his head slowly and replying in a tone only just above a whisper. "No, Dad checked the Missouri lab out, remember? When we called him to say we'd found McDougal. I think that McDougal just panicked, is all. He's probably never had to deal with other people wanting in on his research, and people can get pretty touchy about their intellectual property."

"Well I don't blame 'em for that, I guess," said Joe. But the guy had still been a wuss, in his opinion.

A cool female voice caught Joe's attention then, and he looked up, hearing the babble and murmuring in the room go quiet as everyone looked up at the stewardess who'd appeared before them. "The sirens have gone off, and the tornado warning cancelled," she announced. "You may return to your gates if you wish, but be ready for another possible warning to be called. We're still in a tornado watch for the rest of the night, meaning conditions are favorable for another funnel cloud, and the storm's not through yet."

'Finally!' Joe thought.

"If we wish?" a nearby women muttered. "If? No, I would much rather sit here with some guy's elbow poking into my side." She glared at a man who was walking ahead of her, and Joe had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle the burst of laughter that threatened. Seemed he wasn't the only one getting antsy.

Frank also seemed to be stifling a snicker, and when the woman was out of range, he said, "Coulda been worse. It coulda been poking her someplace a little...lower."

This time Joe couldn't help himself, he let a bray of laughter that caused several of the patrons to give him a quick, strange look, and Joe muffled his mouth once more. His face was getting a bit hot, which always seemed to happen when his brother made some kind of smartassed remark like that. "You are a pervert," he said a moment later, shaking his head. Frank didn't often make that kind of gutter remark – only when he wanted to watch Joe's face turn colors – but still!

"It happens once you turn eighteen," said Frank, his face deadpan. "You'll see in a few months."

Joe rolled his eyes.

He had hoped that after the tornado passed that the storm would let up, but it didn't; the rain fell even harder, something Joe would not have thought possible an hour earlier. Someone had tuned their radio in to an emergency broadcast, and it said that several areas had been put on a flash flood warning. They were even thinking of evacuating the people who lived near the Missouri and Platte rivers, as well as several of the major creeks and streams.

"Damn," said Joe quietly, "it's gotta be pretty bad if they go about formal evacuations, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," said Frank quietly, staring uneasily out the large terminal windows once more. Most of them were back in the terminal, waiting at the gate their flight was supposed to have left from almost three hours ago. The plane sat at the gate, water streaming down its silvery sides, the lightning flashing off of it like flares. "I know you like storms, Joe, but this is ridiculous."

"I like storms when they're not forcing me at lightning point to sit in a hard, uncomfortable chair," Joe shot back, and Frank snorted laughter.

"Well, I am going to try and get some sleep," said Frank. "Wake me if anything interesting happens."

"Like if an ark goes gliding down the runway?"

"Yes. Like that." Yawning, Frank closed his magazine and slumped down in the airport chair.

It didn't take Frank too long to sink down into slumber. One might have thought he wouldn't be able to sleep, what with the raging thunder and the crying kids and the murmur of discontented passengers. But Frank and Joe had been in more strange situations than any sane person could imagine, and could sleep under just about any circumstances. In fact Joe felt his own eyelids growing heavy, and he slumped in his own chair, his head sliding down to rest on his brother's shoulder.

Joe did not know how much time had gone by when a feeling of deep unease filled him, cutting through his muddled dreams and hauling him up into wakefulness. The storm still spent its fury outside, if possible even more viciously than before. He blinked when he saw that he was curled up in his chair, nearly _cuddling_ up against his brother despite the chair arm that separated their chairs, and he sat up quickly, feeling his face begin to tinge red. He had no problems demonstrating his love for his brother, but to curl up with him in the middle of a crowded airline terminal was a bit much. He caught a few of the passengers looking at them with some amusement, and a teenage girl giggled as if she was looking at the _cutest_ thing ever.

Feeling surly, Joe reached out a hand to shake Frank awake, when there was a flash like a billion strobe lights blowing their fuses all at once. Almost exactly at the same time, an ear-rending, horrendous crack rent the air outside, shaking the entire building, making nearly everyone in the terminal cry out or scream in shock. Frank bolted upright, a grimace on his face, his hands clamping over his ears before he was properly awake. Joe's own hands had covered his ears, which felt numb, and he realized he was shaking. He saw several of the children in the terminal crying, but he couldn't hear a damned thing. A vague worry that he'd been deafened was assuaged when he realized he _could_ hear, and that his hearing was returning rapidly, but he was still unnerved.

"What the hell was that?" Frank hissed.

"I-I dunno," said Joe, looking uneasily out the window. "You don't think it could be thunder, do you?" His hearing was still a little off, and he was getting a nice case of tintinnabulation to boot, but at least he could hear.

"I..." Frank trailed off, frowning, as he stood up from his seat. His expression deepened from startled half-wakefulness to something that was almost fear, and Joe felt his heart rate spike uncomfortably. "Joe...I can't hear anything."

"It's okay," said Joe, glancing sympathetically at a nearby little girl of maybe four, who was wailing in fright as her weary-looking father tried to soothe her. He looked back at Frank, alarmed at the fear on his brother's face. "It'll return, my ears did that, too."

Frank shook his head rapidly. "No, no, not that, I mean outside. Listen."

Joe did. Several others around them, having overheard them, also fell silent and listened, and Joe realized that Frank was right. The storm, raging full force only a minute before, had stopped. Just like that, stopped dead, as if someone had flipped a switch. "Um. That's not normal, is it?"

"Not even in Nebraska," said a woman, laughing a bit nervously. "They say the weather here changes by the minute, but this is ridiculous!"

"Look," said Frank, his voice disbelieving. "The clouds aren't even moving; they're just...well no, they're moving a little," he said after a moment, sounding a bit relieved. "But they're just swirling around in place...they're not blowing away."

"Well," said a man, "at least we'll be able to get the hell out of this damned terminal, now."

Normally the news would have filled Joe with glee, but it didn't this time. For some reason, the only thing Joe felt was uneasiness, and he did not think they would be leaving any time soon. Frank, the more levelheaded of them, nodded his head slowly. "That's true," he said. "I really do want to get home, now." But there was something in his expression, so subtle that Joe was the only one who could catch it, said that he wasn't so sure, himself.

"Let's see what the airline says," said Joe. He glanced once more out of the large windows, up at the lazily swirling black clouds, at the glimpses of deep blue sky behind them. The night was completely still.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Five minutes after the bomb-blast thundercrack, a man and a woman, each with a pilot's uniform on came to address the restless group in the terminal. "Ladies and gentlemen!" the woman called, her voice clear and strong. It easily caught everyone's attention. "I am Captain Thompson, I am the pilot of Flight 723 tonight! This is my co-pilot, Lieutenant Miller. First of all, please let me apologize once more for the inconvenience. Even for Nebraska, the weather tonight has been extremely strange."

"Ya got that right," muttered a man, shaking his head ruefully.

"Second of all, I am sorry to say that we are not able to leave just yet." She held up her hands in a placating gesture at the groans and angry mutterings that rippled through the group. Joe looked around and noticed that the groups gathered at other gates seemed to be getting a similar message. "I know, I know," said the pilot sympathetically. "We want to get out of here almost as much as you do. And the weather, well, the storm seems to have passed completely, meaning that normally we'd be leaving within the half-hour. But we seem to have a bit of a malfunction in a few of our planes today. Of course you understand that your safety is our number one concern, and we want to make absolutely sure that the planes have not been somehow damaged by the storm. We will keep you updates as much as possible."

More groans, and Joe smacked his forehead. "Aw, great," he muttered, but quietly; he didn't want the poor captain to hear yet another dissatisfied customer.

"Until then," Captain Thompson said, "We will be bringing out cots and personal toiletries kits for you, compliments of American Airlines. It will take us a few hours to complete our flight checks, so we hope to make you all as comfortable as possible!"

Frank and Joe exchanged an uneasy look. Normal preflight checks did not take that long, and they both knew it, and from the looks on the faces of some of the travelers, a few of them knew, too. Something was wrong here, and it was something more than a simple malfunction in one or two planes.

Joe watched as airport workers began dragging out simple camp cots and setting them up in the terminals. Another group began to pass out little kits in thin plastic, wallet-like containers to all of the people in the terminal. Joe took his with a distracted "thanks" and took a look. The toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, some wet wipes, a small bottle of lotion, and a disposable washcloth.

"They expect we'll be here a while," said Frank uneasily. "You think we oughta talk with the airport workers?"

"Let's not just yet," said Joe quietly. "We don't know anyone here in Omaha, and we don't exactly want to draw attention to ourselves. Especially if it is some kind of sabotage."

Frank nodded, and the two of them staked out a pair of cots in the corner, setting their overnight bags beneath them and sitting down together on Joe's cot. Watching the other people settling in (most of them seemed to want to sleep, but some were wakeful and restless), they discussed the possibilities.

Neither brother figured the strangeness had anything to do with their latest case. There had been no foul play involved, and the "missing" person was alive and well. Frank wondered if it was someone unrelated to the case might be after him and Joe, and they discussed the possibility, but decided that it was highly unlikely. All of their most recent cases had been wrapped up fairly neatly, and if it _was_ someone coming after them, being able to use the storm as the cover for their dirty work was incredibly lucky timing on their part. The storm had come, literally, out of the blue.

The only things they came up with that seemed to be plausible were still a little bit unusual. Either the planes really had been messed up by the storm, or someone had messed them up. A terrorist would not be so subtle, and would likely wait until the planes were in flight to pull something. Someone who just wanted to cause problems likely would not have the know-how to make a jet plane malfunction, nor would they be able to get access to the planes without being caught by the massive security measures around the airport.

"Terrorists," Joe spat quietly. "If I find out..."

Frank said nothing, only put an arm around his brother's shoulder. Ever since Iola...ever since she'd been killed in a bomb that was in the Hardys' car, the very word "terrorist" ignited furious rage in Joe's spirit. It still hurt him terribly, and Frank, too, though not quite as deeply. "You don't think it's the Assassins, do you?" he asked Joe.

"I...dunno, Frank," said Joe, suddenly feeling weary. "It could be I guess. But still, there's that weird storm. And there was a tornado. It might have mucked things up. I guess we just wait and see. Now that the storm's passed, they should be able to figure out it soon enough I guess."

"Yeah. Well I am gonna get some shut-eye. If anything does happen I wanna be a little more alert than I am now."

"Good idea," said Joe, as Frank stood up and slumped down on his own cot. "Bet they're gonna make a bundle selling Mountain Dew and coffee tonight."

Frank snorted. "Maybe they did the sabotage themselves, so they could boost their soda sales."

A laugh was surprised out of Joe, and he lay back on his cot, his arm over his eyes. "Whoo," he said. "Definitely time to sleep. Your jokes are starting to get funny."

Frank rolled his eyes, tossed his toiletries kit at Joe, and lay down. "Night. Sweet dreams."

Joe stuck out his tongue and was about to reply when the lights suddenly went out, leaving the entire terminal in pitch darkness.

There was a collective sort of gasp from the travelers, then an outbreak of babble. Joe blinked, lying on his cot and finally heaved a great sigh. "About those sweet dreams..."

"Yeah, forget it," said Frank. A child was crying somewhere, and a man was snarling something in Spanish, it sounded like, and Joe was fairly sure he heard at least two cuss words. "You don't think it's the storm, do you? Maybe it's moved on and taken out one of the power grids."

"Maybe," said Joe doubtfully. But he didn't think so. "Ya know, I think we might just want to do some looking around of our own after all."

Frank didn't answer, but he didn't need to; Joe heard him sit up and rummage in his travel bag for his flashlight, while Joe did the same. He came out with a small but powerful battery-less flashlight, the kind that you powered just by shaking it back and forth, but didn't switch it on. He didn't feel like drawing attention to himself and Frank when they were about to go snooping. After a moment's thought, he felt for his portable AM/FM radio and snagged that, too, clipping it to his belt.

"You'd think there would be generators," whispered Frank as he and Frank slunk against the wall and moved along it away from their gate.

Joe frowned, another cold chill going down his spine. "Yeah," he said quietly. "You _would_ think. I wonder why...why they don't at least have emergency lights?" He caught sight of two flashlight beams headed their way, and heard the captain's voice again, telling the passengers not to panic, not to worry, that the backup generators should be going on soon. But Joe had the sudden feeling that they weren't going to turn on, and he began to shiver. What was going on here?

"This isn't normal," came Frank's taut voice as they slipped hastily away from the half-circle of gates, where various airline personnel and pilots were addressing their passengers. "The blackout I can see. Happens in New York, too. But the planes, the blackout, _and_ the generators? That's just too many things going screwy. Someone's _got_ to be messing with the mechanics."

"So what do we do about it?" asked Joe, keeping close to his brother so they didn't lose one another. A strange sensation, a deep fight-or-flight sensation, was worming into his mind, and he tried to ignore it. But it made him uneasy. He normally only got that urgent gut feeling when he or Frank were in danger.

"For now, I just want to take a look around, see if we can spot something off. And try not to spook security; I'm sure they're paranoid as hell. Then I wanna talk to the employees and guards, offer our assistance and see if they have found anything."

Joe nodded, realized Frank couldn't see him nod, and whispered, "Okay, sounds like a plan." He almost argued, the panic inside him beginning to grow, but he wanted too badly to find out what was going on to suggest they go back now.

The terminal was incredibly creepy in the dark. Even with the flashlights to stave off the worst of it, it was like a solid thing, a living shroud, slithering down to smother them. Joe scowled, turning his flashlight on a shadowy corner, shaking it back and forth a few times to ensure that it didn't go out. 'Get a grip, Joe,' he said to himself. 'You afraid of the dark, or what? Don't be such a freak.' But he _was_ afraid of the dark...this dark, anyway. It wasn't just darkness, it was something more, and his intuition that things were not right wouldn't leave.

"Careful," Frank whispered, pointing his flashlight at the escalators. Neither of them were working, of course, and Joe didn't fancy taking a tumble down one of them. He nodded, stepping carefully onto the top step, glancing back once to make sure Frank was there. "You edgy, bro?" asked Frank.

"A little," said Joe, concentrating mostly on walking down the stairs without falling. "This creeps me out, I gotta admit."

"It's weird," Frank agreed, and he sounded a little spooked himself. "Normally this kind of snooping around doesn't bug me too much, but there's something else. It's like...I dunno, I keep thinking of dogs, and other animals, and how they feel when an earthquake or other bad weather is coming. I wonder if this is how they feel."

Joe grimaced at the analogy, realizing it was awfully close. Something about the happenings at the airport were stirring Joe's gut and getting his primal instincts all in an uproar.

A sudden noise made both boys whirl around, raising their flashlights, only to breathe a sigh of relief to see uniforms and badges. Security, then, two of them.

"Hold up there, fellas," one of them said. They were both men, one not much older than the Hardys themselves, the other about Fenton's age. Neither of them had drawn their guns, but they looked as if they were ready to in a second if necessary.

Joe realized he was shining his flashlight in their faces and hastily lowered it. "Sorry," he said. "You startled us." That was the understatement of the year, too. Joe's heard was thudding so hard he wondered why the guards weren't mentioning it. He felt like that Poe story about the Tell-Tale heart.

"Apologies," the older guard said. "But we can't have people roaming around – safety precautions, you know. We're having some trouble with the generators, and we wanna make sure no one gets hurt."

Joe was about to tell them that he and Frank were amateur detectives, and could help, when Frank spoke up. "Sorry. I was wantin' some fresh air, especially after a storm, I enjoy being outside. Figured we wouldn't bother anyone, and just come down here ourselves."

"Well," said the guard, "The front doors aren't even working. They run off of electricity, just like everything else. Now not to worry you, the emergency doors are manual, but we don't want people usin' 'em, not until we figure out what's going on."

Joe smacked his forehead; of course the revolving door in the lobby was electric! Joe suddenly felt like an idiot.

"You know we might have thought of that if we'd been thinking in the first place," Frank muttered. "All right we can wait, no problem. Thanks for the heads-up."

The older guard nodded tersely, and Joe caught his expression; worried. He was very worried, and no matter how he tried to hide it, it was obvious. "You're welcome, son. Can you find your way back okay?"

"Sure," said Frank. "This place isn't too big."

"Well, I'll send Jason here along with ya, make sure you get there okay."

'Yeah, right,' Joe thought. 'More like to make sure we don't "forget" to return to the gates.' Oh well, he supposed it was better than being arrested as suspicious characters, or something. He just wondered why Frank hadn't told them that they could help.

---

"So give," Joe demanded once they back at the gate, sitting on the cots they had staked out. The lights were still off, and battery-powered hurricane lamps sat everywhere. The Hardys had put their own lamps into their bags, and Cory had left the area once he'd seen the Hardys to their gate.

"Give?" said Frank softly. "You mean why I didn't insist they allow us help out?" Joe nodded. "Dunno." Joe blinked, as Frank slowly shook his head. "It's not...anything concrete," he said. "I just get this feeling...I want to know more before I offer."

Joe bit his lip briefly, and looked around. They were not the only ones sitting up, sleepless and uneasy. "Yeah, me too." He looked back at Frank, suddenly realizing something. "The people below, the ones who stand at the counter and get your tickets and luggage in order, and everything...where were they, anyway? You'd think they'd stay there for people coming in, but it was totally deserted."

Frank looked startled, his eyes widening slightly, the mild unease on his face deepening. "You're right, and for that matter, no one's come in this place now for...well, since the storm began. I could see them staying away during the flood, I wouldn't wanna drive in that either, and there might have been flooded roads, but...why not now? Did you see anyone outside?"

Joe thought back to their brief trip downstairs, even though they hadn't gotten much of a chance to look out of the tinted windows to the drop-off area. The lights outside hadn't been working, either, but now that Joe thought about it, he couldn't remember seeing anyone at all outside, peering in windows, or maybe trying to get into the revolving doors, wondering if they were going to miss their flight. "No," he said slowly. "No one. That's not normal! This might not be O'Hare airport, but it's still a pretty busy one, isn't it?" His eyes flicked to the ceiling-high windows that looked out onto the runways and the planes at the gates, but it was pitch dark outside, and he couldn't see a thing.

"Yeah, it is. And those guards were scared, because I don't think they know anything about what's going on, either."

"This isn't some saboteur," said Joe, suddenly absolutely certain of it.

"No. So that's why I didn't want to argue. I didn't want to be down there any longer than I needed to be." At least Joe wasn't the only one who felt that way! "So for now let's watch and listen. Get some sleep. I get the idea we're going to need the rest."

Joe didn't want to sleep, but couldn't deny that his body did want to. He rubbed his eyes and lay down on the canvas cot, wondering vaguely why they couldn't make these things a little more comfortable. He didn't think he would fall asleep in any hurry, but it wasn't five minutes before he was dead to the world.

---

When he was shaken awake five minutes later...or so it seemed to Joe...it was still dark outside, and Frank looked grim and worried. "Whahapn...?" Joe managed to mumble, forcing himself to sit up, trying to remember the dream he had been having before being wakened. It wasn't a pretty dream, he knew that, but the details had slipped away as soon as he began waking up.

"Things are getting a little interesting," Frank murmured, his voice calm, but Joe detected a tense edge to it. Feeling a little more awake, Joe shook his head and swiped a lock of blond hair out of his eyes. It needed a cut rather badly. "No one's cell phones are getting a signal, and it's still dark outside."

Joe blinked, his sleep-muddled mind rapidly clearing. "What time is it?"

"Six-thirty AM," said Frank. "The sun should've risen by now. But it hasn't. And look." Frank picked up something that had been lying on the cot next to his leg and held it up; it was Joe's little radio. Frank turned the dial on, and nothing happened.

"Are the batteries dead?" Joe asked, frowning, at first not understanding the significance right away.

"No," Frank said, turning up the dial. Joe blinked, feeling a shiver go through him, at a low, ominous hum came from the radio. He was about to ask if it was tuned in right when Frank slowly began turning the dial, and Joe watched the red line slide slowly past the entire FM band. "Dead air, from all stations."

Joe began to shake. "Interference of some kind?" he asked, his voice steady only with some effort.

"Possibly, the AM band's got static, so I think it's either interference, or possibly the stations' signals are being messed with at their source, leaving nothing for the radio to pick up." He turned the volume down and switched the radio to AM to demonstrate this, and Joe jumped slightly at the burst of static that issued from it before Frank turned the radio off.

"When did this all happen?"

"I don't know for sure," said Frank. "I asked some of the other people, and the earliest that anyone noticed their cell phone not working was right after we went to sleep...about four and a half hours ago. The guy that had the emergency radio can't get that to work, either, and the emergency station is all automated."

Joe looked out of the nearby window, frowning deeply on seeing it was indeed still pitch dark outside, and he could only barely make out the shape of their plane, a dark blob against the blackness. "I see." He could not think of anything else to say, because he'd never experienced anything quite like this. There could be a perfectly logical explanation to the whole thing, but if there was, Joe couldn't think of it to save his life. He didn't believe in ghosts or other "spooky" phenomena, but this situation had him spooked all the same.

The sound of hands clapping sharply got everyone's attention; Captain Thompson had come back, looking tired and worried. Joe noticed that she as addressing everyone in the open area of the terminal, even the people gathered at the other gates. "Attention, everyone, please!" she called. "There will be a meal served within the half hour!" A few half-hearted cheers came from the other side of the terminal, and when Joe's stomach growled hungrily, he had to agree. "There is no news of the generators – the airport personnel have not been able to find the problem. But I must ask everyone to remain here in the terminal, until further notice! Our first concern is your safety, and until it's clear what's happened, it's best if we all stay in the terminal. There are restrooms and cots, and food enough for several days' worth of sheltering if need be."

"That's bad," said Frank, frowning. "Do you see her face? She knows something's really screwy, too."

"I got a wife at home!" one man called angrily. "You're saying that I can't get out of here and se if she's all right?" A low rumbled of agreement rose up from several people in the terminal, and the captain sighed.

"We will not stop anyone leaving," Captain Thomas said finally. "But no one leaving will be allowed back in until further notice. I feel I should tell you that that no one has come to the airport since the storm began, and no one has been seen outside. The sun should be shining by now, but it's as dark as midnight outside, and not just because of the clouds. We should be getting _some_ light."

The man who'd spoke was standing at the booth in the next gate, and looked like he'd been caught wrong-footed. He probably had expected to be told he wasn't allowed to leave.

"So what are you saying?" a woman asked skeptically. "Are you saying that there's...what, something 'spooky' going on?"

"I'm not saying anything of the sort," said Captain Thompson sharply. "All I am saying is that we want to be as cautious as possible until we know what's happened. All outside contact has been cut off, and the generators refuse to work. And until we know what's wrong, we're playing it safe. Now. If you will all be seated, we will begin bringing out the meal." The woman nodded briefly at the crowd before walking away, towards the escalators, making it clear that the conversation was over with. The crowd broke out into a babble of chatter once she was gone.

"Well, that was interesting," said Frank dryly. "I'm surprised she was that honest with everyone."

"Well she didn't really say much that we all didn't already know. The darkness outside is obvious, no one's radios or cell phones are working, and the generator obviously died because the lights are still not on."

"Well," said Frank. "After this meal then, I say we begin our own investigation. I wanna talk with the captain, she seems like a pretty cool sort, and see if we can't find some answers."

Joe nodded and sat back on his cot as the fod was passed out to the travelers.

The meal could be called food, Joe supposed, if one were to get technical. It was edible...barely. Still, it was something to eat, and it filled Joe's growling gut.

When everyone was finished eating, a few flight attendants, along with Captain Thompson, began collecting the plates. Frank stood suddenly and went over to the captain, saying something to her in a low voice. Joe blinked, but stayed where he was, irritation tickling the back of his mind as he watched his brother, and debated whether to follow. He hated when Frank just off and did something without telling Joe what the blazes he was doing. And people said Joe was impulsive! Maybe he was, but he certainly wasn't the only one in the family.

Frank looked around, looking slightly surprised, then looked back and gestured Joe over, and Joe wondered if Frank had expected him to come along to begin with. It would have been nice if he'd said so! Pushing his annoyance aside, Joe joined Frank and Captain Thompson. The pilot nodded politely as Joe approached.

"Captain Thompson's heard of Dad," said Frank, "and of us. She says that she'd welcome our help. Technically, airport security's in charge of checking this whole, weird situation out, but--"

He broke off as burst of static from the hand radio Thompson had clasped on her belt made all three of them jump. Frowning, Captain Thompson grabbed it up, pressed the button on the side, and said clearly, "Captain Thompson here, please repeat, over."

The voice was garbled and staticy, but his message was loud and clear: a plane was circling, asking permission to land!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"A plane wanting to land? What airline?" asked the woman, as Frank and Joe exchanged a startled look.

"American! Actu...bit...oblem. Mig...co..."

Anything else the man might have said was cut off by a loud burst of static; Thompson, who had the radio to her ear, grimaced and jerked away from it quickly. "Follow me, boys, we're gonna go up to the tower, see what this is all about."

Joe and Frank followed, both of them bewildered and uneased by the whole thing. Though Joe was more apt to believe in the supernatural than Frank, neither boy as a rule tended to credit most "spooky" tales they had ever heard that was supposed to be true. This, however, was certainly a spooky tale, and neither one was sure how to deal with it.

"For now let's just listen," said Joe, shaking his head in bewilderment. "Listen and watch."

"I think that's a good idea, brother," said Frank. "Because as of now I am officially confused as hell."

The lights began to flicker as they walked, and the captain stopped for a moment, looking up as the lights began to stabilize, finally shining steadily as they had before the storm had struck. She clenched her fist briefly in a "Yes!" gesture before hurrying along.

"I guess the generators kicked in," said Frank quietly. "I wonder if the planes are working now, too."

"Well there's obviously one plane working," said Joe.

Captain Thompson led the two of them to a door marked "No Admittance: Authorized Personnel Only", and produced her key ring once more, unlocking the door. A set of steps led upwards to what turned out to be the control tower of the airport. Two airport security people were, along with it seemed half the employees of the entire building. One of the guards frowned and stepped forward at the sight of Frank and Joe, and they both recognized their old "friend" Jason from downstairs, but Captain THompson said laconically, "They're with me."

Jason looked surprised, but backed off willingly enough as Thompson strode in.

"Morning, Captain," said a man in an identical uniform. He was standing near one of the large windows in the control tower, shaking his head bemusedly. The lights were on in here, also, and even the radio communications seemed to be clearing up.

"Morning, Captain Porter," said Thompson. "What's going on?"

"Well, it seems as though we have one of our own planes coming in to land." His expression was strange as he spoke, his face oddly pale. "They're cruising around at 1,000 feet."

"Is it 845, from Dallas?"

Porter shook his head, that same, strange look on his face. "No...no, it's none of the flights that were scheduled to come in today...or tomorrow...or yesterday..." He twitched his hands upwards in a sort of 'I have no clue what's going on' gesture and finished, "It's flight 133, in from Chicago. It's a Boeing 720, Captain Thompson."

Thompson blinked, her face blank a moment with disbelief. "It can't be a 720; American Airlines hasn't used those in decades!"

"Yes...I know. I tried looking it up by its ID number, but our computers haven't been able to connect since the lights went out. They're working just fine now with the generators...we just can't connect to any place outside."

No one said a word for quite a few minutes. Not even Joe could think of anything to say about this very strange phenomenon. The two pilots (there were only two American Airlines planes at Eppley when the storm had hit) stared at each other with blank bewilderment. Frank looked much the same, and Joe figured that he did, too.

"Well, we're gonna let 'em land," said a burly man standing nearby. It seemed he was in charge of the control tower crew. "Can't just have 'em circling up there like an overgrown buzzard. Once the pilot's in here, maybe we can answer some questions."

As the tower crew went about getting flight 402 down onto the runway, the burly man came over and frowned at Frank and Joe. "Who are these boys, and why are they here?" he asked Captain Thompson, his gruff voice not quite over the line of rudeness, but almost.

And so Captain Thompson introduced them and explained that they were willing to give any assistance that might be needed. The boys braced themselves mentally for the disbelief, the scoffing, the sneer-down-the-nose contempt most adults sent their way on being told they were detectives and wanted to help them. To their surprise, it did not come. The man only nodded, shook their hands, and briefly introduced himself as Caleb Brown.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Brown," said Frank, shaking the big man's hand. "I don't guess you've any idea what's happening?"

The man quirked an eyebrow. "Son, no one here knows what's happening. For now we're just trying to get information. And that bird comin' in now might just hold some answers for us."

"The pilot will come up here?" Joe asked.

"No, actually. I'm going to have captains Thompson and Porter go down and meet them. They're with American, just as this incoming flight is. Go with 'em, if you want to." He looked up at the two pilots as he said this, shaking his head again. "Like I say, find out what you can from the pilot...see if this is someone's idea of ridiculous joke, or what."

"Will do," said Thompson. "Lemme know if you need us again." Brown raised a hand briefly in acknowledgement, then walked back over to one of the nearby computer consoles.

On the way back down to the gates, Joe decided he didn't like Captain Porter a whole lot. While Mr. Brown hadn't looked down on them, Porter seemed like he was far more apt to do so. He said nothing to the boys, speaking only with Thompson as they walked, and only gave a rather uninterested grunt and nod when she introduced them. Joe scowled in irritation, but kept his mouth shut. For now the important thing was to get this mystery solved. Joe and Frank had a rather high stake in this mystery. Getting home seemed more and more dependant on getting it figured out.

Gate 4 was one of two currently not full of people, as no flights had been expected there when the storm had hit. The Boeing 720 would be coming in at that gate, and the only ones standing there were the two American Airlines pilots, and the Hardy brothers. A small knot of curious passengers had congregated behind them, but one of the security staff was keeping them well back.

Joe watched the plane's lights grow bigger and bigger as it taxied up to the terminal, finally stopping right outside the window. Joe watched the boarding ramp...the accordion walkway thing that connects from the terminal to the plane...extend out and seal itself to the door. In a whisper he asked Frank what that was called.

"Jetway," answered Frank distractedly. Well, that made sense, Joe supposed.

There was a space of perhaps five minutes during which nothing at all happened, and Joe caught himself shifting from foot to foot like a little boy needing to use the urinal. He didn't bother stilling himself, though; fidgeting was just in his nature, and it helped when he was nervous.

When the door to the terminal was opened, Joe blinked, absolutely sure he was on some weird movie set, or having a dream of some kind. The first people to exit the airplane were three women, all looking nervous and uncertain, wearing long dresses and hats...one of them one of those pillbox hats that J. F. K.'s wife always wore.

The women stopped short on seeing the crowd of people that waited at the gate, but were ushered gently ahead by a woman in an archaic looking flight attendant's uniform. The flight attendant holding open the door was dressed in a blue dress straight out of a history film from school. She had one of those weird, almost-military style hats on her head, with blue and white stripes. The woman passengers wandered over to a row of seats, and sat down in them, looking over the crowd in wonder.

A man stepped out, then, wearing a mostly normal-looking suit, but what shocked Joe was that he held a pipe between his teeth, and it was lit! And, once he'd noticed that, Joe began to notice the acrid odor of other smoke wafting from the jetway, smoke from the plane itself, and as difficult as it was, Joe realized that people were smoking in there. And it was being allowed!

Until then, Joe could have seen the whole thing as some kind of joke or hoax...but smoking on airplanes was not permitted in this day and age. Period. Not in America, anyway! That, more than anything...more than the old-fashioned clothing, the strange hairdos, boys dressed in overalls and striped shirts, teenagers in bell bottoms and short dresses. More than the Jackie Kennedy hats and even the outdated jet which had taxied up to the gate, it was the cigarette smoke that told Joe that this was _really_ happening.

He finally turned to stare at Frank, and knew he felt the same way. This was real. Whatever it was, it was real. "Well," said Frank weakly. "This is interesting, at any rate."

That was one word for it! Joe actually laughed, amazed at this remnant from another time passed before his eyes, resisting an insane urge to start talking to people, asking to look in their luggage and see what people forty years ago generally brought on vacation. And the people from the plane were doing their share of staring, too, and Joe realized they looked longest at some of the girls' clothing, a teenaged boy with a purple Mohawk... (Joe didn't blame them, really...Mohawks weren't as common as they had been in the '80's, but to someone from 1965 or so, it would be downright bizarre) and some of the gadgets people held. Must look like something from Star Trek...or whatever show it was they watched back then.

The last to disembark was the flight crew, a group of four flight attendants...though Joe supposed at that time they were stewardesses...and the cockpit crew, all men. The pilot went straight up to Captain Porter and shook his hand, not even looking at Thompson just yet. He introduced himself as Captain Young, and that the flight he'd brought in was 133, in from O'Hare in Chicago.

"Good to meet you. I'm Henry Porter, and this is Jennifer Thompson. We're the only two pilots here at the moment from American Airlines. These young men, here, are here to help, also. They are Frank and Joe Hardy."

Young blinked, staring for a moment at Thompson, who was dressed in a pants uniform nearly identical to Porter's. "A woman piloting for American?" he asked, his tone that of great surprise. Joe winced slightly and looked to Thompson, whose expression was mild. He had to admire her restraint, and had to admit if he'd been female and questioned like that, he'd probably be pretty steamed. Like when people looked at him and said, "A detective? But you're just a kid."

"I imagine, Captain, Young, that it's strange for you," said Thompson quietly. "There's a good deal we have to discuss."

"Perhaps," said Porter, "if you could leave your flight attendants to sort of look after your passengers, we could go up to the control tower and talk."

To Young's credit, he asked no further questions, he only nodded briskly and left them for a moment to talk to the women in the old-fashioned uniforms. He spoke for a few moments, gestures to his co-pilot and navigator, and returned to the group.

As Porter began to lead them away from the gate, Thompson turned to the boy and asked, "You coming?"

With sudden intuition, Joe turned to Frank and said, "You go ahead. I'm gonna stay here and see what I can find out. You're the flyboy, anyway, I'll probably get hopelessly lost listening to half a dozen pilots talking about planes and flights."

Frank was surprised into a laugh, and he nodded. "Okay. Ask to use one of the guards' radios if you need me, okay?"

"Will do." Joe smiled at Captain Thompson as she and Frank turned to catch up with the others, and he heard her say, "You're a pilot, Frank?"

"Well I have my license," said Frank modestly, "but it's not my job or anything..."

Joe chuckled as they walked off, then turned his attention to the passengers of flight 133 and the attendants who had been left to tend to them. Several of the people had cigarettes in their hands, but no one was telling them extinguish them...Joe guessed that security probably were a little too weirded out by the whole thing.

"So...where are we, anyway?"

Joe turned at the sound of the voice, having come from a young man in camouflaged clothing. The uniform was wrinkled and unkempt, making Joe doubt he was military, and remembered that it was somewhat of a fad to wear old fatigues in the sixties...especially during Vietnam. He was about to answer, when he realized the kid wasn't talking to him, but the stewardesses.

"Omaha," said one, though she wasn't looking so sure of herself. "Supposedly."

"Sure doesn't look like any Omaha I knew," grunted a fat man, one of those who had been smoking.

"But it is," said the stewardess, taking her hat off and running a hand through her short hair. "It's just...something's happened." Joe had an idea she suspected what _had_ happened, but was reluctant to say...and who could blame her? She probably felt as if she'd gone mad! Joe wasn't sure exactly what to say...he wanted to tell them that they were in the year 2006, but had an idea that wouldn't be the greatest idea to just announce it...he decided to do some talking and see what happened.

He began by approaching the kid who'd spoken, who looked maybe a year older than Joe himself. "Hi," he finally said, extending a hand. "I'm Joe Hardy."

The kid shook his hand willingly enough, though the uneasy, bewildered look gleamed still in his eyes. "Hey. I'm Jerry Hanson. You...I heard them say you were here to help out with things...I mean do you know what happened?"

Joe sighed quietly, running his hand through his own hair, much as the flight attendant had done. "Well...actually, no," he said. "Not exactly. I know some things...but it's pretty hard to swallow. Er, tell me, what year is it?"

The kid blinked and gave Joe a very strange look. "You serious?" On seeing that Joe was very serious indeed, the kid's strange look grew more uneasy. "It's 1966, fella..." He searched Joe's face, and his frown deepened. "Isn't it? _Isn't_ it?"

Joe held up his hands in a calming gesture. "Easy, just take it easy." He was aware that at least half of flight 133 had their eyes on him, and resisted the urge to squirm uncomfortably. He never was so great at performing in front of strangers, even when the performance was just talk. "Look, er, some weird crap's been happening, I know, but we're trying to figure it out. Once we do, that's one step closer to fixing it...whatever it is."

A young voice spoke, his tone trembling. "Are we in outer space?" Joe turned to look at a boy of about eight, wearing jeans with the legs rolled up at the bottom, and a checkered, button-down shirt. He was grinning, his eyes wide and bright, and Joe understood that the shake in his voice had been excitement, not fear. His mother, standing with her hand on his shoulder, however, looked afraid of the answer.

Joe couldn't help but chuckle. "Not quite, kiddo. You're on Earth, still, in Omaha, Nebraska."

"Look." The fat man who'd spoken earlier had now stood from his seat, his expression mildly contemptuous. "This ain't Omaha. I've been in Omaha several times, and it looks nothing like this. If you're gonna tell tales, son, at least make sure no one can refute 'em."

Joe bristled at the condescending tone in the man's voice, but forced himself to be calm; going off like the Fourth of July wasn't going to help matters.

"Come on,' came a woman's voice. "Just...just _tell_ us. I mean we've been affected by this...whatever it is. We've a right to know."

Several voices of agreement rose from the small crowd, and Joe sighed. Looked like he wasn't going to get any information without giving some, first. "Okay," he said, as if to say 'you asked for it'. "But I warn you, it's gonna be weird, and you probably won't believe me anyway." He looked pointedly at the fat man, who crossed muscular looking arms above his impressive belly.

"Well, lay it on us then, man," said the teenager in the army fatigues.

Joe had no idea what kind of a reaction he was going to get from this; he shot a quick glance at the security officers, who were still keeping the main crown from the terminal back away from the people from flight 133, and they looked a little uneasy. Joe shrugged mentally, scanning the faces of the crowd, then shrugged his shoulders, as well. "You're in Omaha, Nebraska," he said. "But this is not 1966. It's 2006."

The fat man snorted, making it quite clear what he thought, and several people chuckled. A young voice exclaimed, "Boss!" in an awed voice, and his parent shushed him quickly. But there was surprisingly little else in the way of vocal reaction; most of the people didn't seem to know _how_ to react. It was such an outrageous claim, but Joe thought that things might just be a little too weird for everyone to disbelieve it.

"How can that be?" asked one of the flight attendants, shaking her head slightly and frowning. "It just isn't possible, I mean this isn't exactly a Star Trek episode." There were some uneasy chuckles at her comment, but most of the people looked either worried or skeptical.

"Well," said Joe, "I have no idea, really. That's what the pilots are trying to figure out. All I know is what year it is...and I'm sure I can come up with a few pieces of technology that might convince some of you of the truth. But the most important thing is this...we have to stay calm. Like I said, this is a weird situation, but we can figure it out...maybe if I could find out what happened with you guys, it'll help things along."

The first stewardess spoke up then, having replaced her hat on her head. "Not much to tell, really," she said. "We left from Chicago at about three in the afternoon. There was a storm on the way into Omaha, but the captain was able to climb above it easily enough, avoiding most of it."

"The instruments went wacky for a while," said one of the other attendants, "but they settled down after about five minutes. We figured it was some kind of radio tower interference, or something like that. But when we climbed below the cloud cover, approaching Eppley, well, things just didn't look right. The captain wondered if he'd gotten turned around somehow in mid flight, but no...no, it was Eppley. They identified us to the tower, and we landed."

The other attendants were nodding in agreement to this, and Joe sighed in frustration. There really _was_ nothing to tell. Whatever happened had done so when the instruments went wacky, but that was about all that could be gleaned from the tale. Unless the Bermuda Triangle had somehow shifted to include the Omaha and Council Bluffs area, it seemed the cause was a complete mystery. 'We gotta go outside,' he thought. 'Gotta see what the hell, and if anyone's outside yet...' This flight had somehow made it from Chicago to Omaha, passing through forty years as they did so, perhaps other people were around now, also from the same era. Had some kind of weird time wormhole appeared over Omaha? Had there been some weird nuclear accident? He tried to remember how close the nearest nuclear plant was, but had no idea.

"Well," he said. "Well, that doesn't tell us much, huh? We had that same storm here." He glanced at his watch, which read 7:23AM, and frowned, looking out the window. It was still dark outside, but he thought he might see the first gray of dawn on the horizon...but the sun should have risen long ago. It was mid-summer for crying out loud. But if time had been screwed up... A disquieting thought came to him. _Was_ it still 2006? "It's about 7:30AM, or, at least, it should be. But it's only now dawn. The storm raged for hours...it was weird. Then it ended with a huge clap of thunder."

There was tense silence for about a minute, before the fat man snorted again, and Joe found himself wanting to punch they guy in the nose. "Sorry, son," he said, chuckling and shaking his head, taking his nearly-burned-down cigarette out of his mouth and looking around him. "Sounds like a large pile of horse puckey to me—where's the damned ashtrays around here?"

Joe looked at him cooly. "Well normally there's no smoking allowed in here, not in here or on the airplanes. So there's no need for ashtrays."

The man looked at him as if he'd gone mad. "What're you talking about, boy? Of course smoking's allowed, why wouldn't it be?"

"Maybe because most people don't like sucking in someone's else's cigarette smoke into their lungs,' said Joe, losing patience. He gestured pointedly to a No Smoking sign, then looked around and spied a trash can with several disposable metal trays from supper in it. He strode over to snag one, and tossed at the man, who caught it deftly with his free hand. He was looking at Joe with a good deal of dislike, but there was uneasiness there, too. "Use that if you must,' said Joe. "And pass it around, wilya? Other people've got cigarettes."

Everyone was watching this little confrontation. And Joe frowned, feeling again as if he were on display, and turned abruptly towards the crowd from the other gates. "I'll be back,' he said to one of the guards, who nodded and let him through. Joe wove through the spectators, gaining the relative isolation of the corner he and Frank had staked out before things got _really_ weird. He took a deep breath, grimacing as he smelled smoke on his clothing, and his lip curled in disgust. He really hated cigarettes, and hated how you couldn't get the smell off of you, even when you weren't around it long.

He closed his eyes, letting his temper cool, then began rummaging through his and Frank's carryon bags. He wished Frank had his laptop with him, but he supposed he had enough here to wow the folks from 1966. He grabbed Frank's cell phone, his own digital camera, and MP3 player, then headed back.

Once the guards let him through to the gate, Joe saw every eye swivel back towards him. The fat man had extinguished his cigarette butt and was once again standing with his arms crossed, a hostile expression on his face. He was the worst in terms of hostility, but there were others with similar expressions. 'They don't wanna believe,' Joe thought. 'Even with Eppley airfield being totally alien to them, not even with the strange clothes, and female pilots, they don't want to believe.' But they had to. If anyone was going to get anything done, they had to believe.

Wondering briefly how Frank and the others were doing, Joe first held up his digital camera. "Anyone here have a camera?" he asked. The passengers murmured, many blinking at the seemingly strange question.

"I've got one," said a woman finally.

"Me too," said a girl of about twelve, and a few others said that they did as well.

Joe nodded. "All right. Anyone have the kind that prints out the pictures right away? A Polaroid?" Of the half-dozen or so who'd spoken up, two said their cameras were Polaroids. "Cool...could you bring them out, maybe?"

The two Polaroid owners exchanged a glance and then one of them shrugged, and they went for their luggage. The two men, about twenty and forty-five years old, returned a moment later with large, bulky cases with straps to carry it over the shoulder. The younger man took his out, and Joe blinked; the thing had a telescoping lens, the kind that looked like an accordion. For just a moment it looked like a miniature jetway, and he had to stifle a crazy laugh. 'Oh boy, Hardy, you're losing it,' he thought.

"It's brand-new," said the boy proudly. He held it up, smiling proudly. "Can I take a picture? It's even color."

Joe laughed and figured, why not? "All right, go ahead. Then I have something to show you." He smirked as the boy raised the camera, turning it on the extending the lens and taking a moment to get Joe centered in the viewer. The flash nearly blinded Joe when it went off, and he spent the next few seconds blinking back little dots.

He was bemused for a moment at the actions the boy was making at the back of the camera, and realized that old Polaroids certainly did involve a lot of effort. The kid finally yanked a lever or something to one side, and pulled a flat thing from the side of the camera. Joe realized a moment later that it was the photograph, with a big flap on one side to grasp it with, and a plastic cover on the front. He approached curiously as the boy removed the plastic cover, revealing the slowly developing photograph.

It was a pretty good picture, considering how ancient the camera was, though Joe thought it wasn't one of his better pictures. His grin looked slightly maniacal. "Pretty cool," he said softly. "And you say this is brand new, right?"

"Yeah! Just got it a month before, in fact. My dad gave it to me for my birthday."

"Well, I got a camera for my birthday too, actually. Would you care to see it?"

The boy blinked, then shrugged. "Um, sure, is it with your luggage?"

"No, no, it's right here." Joe held the camera up so that everyone could see, a top of the line digital camera he had indeed gotten for his birthday the previous year. It was small enough to fit in his hand, and undoubtedly looked like a kid's building block or something to them. The kid laughed, a genuine sound of amusement, and sorta punched Joe on the shoulder. "Right, buddy, that's real boss – bet it cost a lot of money too, huh?" He chuckled, honestly believing that Joe was playing a prank on him.

"Sure," Joe said. "It's top of the line, itself. Can I take your picture this time?"

Still chuckling, the kid retracted his Polaroid's lens and put it away in his case, setting it at his feet and striking a comical pose. "Sure, how's this?"

"Just perfect." A smile was on Joe's face, but he was beginning to feel pretty irritated. The kid meant to harm, with no contempt of condescension in his voice, but the whole thing was still getting pretty old. He switched on the camera, noting the astonished looks of the people close enough to him to hear the slight beep it made when it turned on, and to see the LCD screen on the back light up. He held the camera up and pressed the button. He almost laughed at the look of astonishment on the camera kid's face when the flash went off.

"Whoa, that thing's got a light on it!" someone exclaimed.

"A prop," scoffed the fat man, but he looked uneasy.

"Yeah, a prop, that's it," Joe said sarcastically. He turned the camera around, pushing the button on the left that would call the image onto the screen, then walked over to the camera kid. "Have a look," he said quietly. The kid did, and his shocked expression melted slowly to that of uneasy dismay. There he was, right on the screen, striking his jester's pose. Joe felt sorry for the kid, who looked as if he might faint. Worried he just might, he put a hand on his arm and guided him to a seat, where he sat wordlessly.

In the end, Joe went all around the group, showing them the photo and taking a few more to prove it was no trick or illusion. He showed them the memory card it used instead of film, and explained he had to wait until he got home to his brother's computer before he was able to print the pictures out. Yes, his brother's computer...half the people in the country (or more he estimated) had computers, and they weren't the huge, bulky things from the 60's. (He again wished they had Frank's laptop. That'd really shock them!)

He almost didn't need to display the cell phone or the MP3 player, but he did, and when he was finished, there wasn't a one person who did not believe him. A small group of them claimed they didn't...said firmly that it was all a prank, or a hoax...but they didn't really think that was true. Joe saw it in their eyes, which were wide and scared.

"It's true," Joe said quietly to them. "Now we just have to figure out what exactly happened, and why."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Well, you didn't waste any time." At Frank's voice behind him, Joe started, and turned around quickly. On seeing Frank standing there with a smirk on his face, Joe narrowed his eyes just a little and gave him a look. "Gotta be more observant than that, bro," said Frank.

Joe snorted, seeing the barely-concealed smile on his face. "We'll see about that," he muttered. The three pilots stood there also, looking distractedly amused, except perhaps for Porter, who looked rather disapproving. Joe didn't like Captain Porter a whole lot, but he was used to that. He met a _lot_ of people on his and Frank's cases that he didn't like, and half of them weren't even the criminals.

"Find anything out?" asked Frank.

"Nothing you likely don't know," said Joe. "They're from 1966." He'd heard similar phrases in a dozen movies and books, Back to the Future being one of his favorites, but saying here, in the middle of the Omaha airport, they sounded completely insane. They sounded even more insane when Joe reminded himself that they were true words. "They rode above the storm on the way here and landed in 2006, basically. Talk about a long trip; it took them forty years to get here."

Frank was nodding, all trace of humor or teasing having left his face. "That's pretty much it," said Frank. "Captain Young seemed to remember seeing a bright light flash as he was coming in, but couldn't say exactly where it came from. I'm thinking that it was that lightning flash we saw right before the ear-numbing thunder that ended the storm."

Joe glanced out the nearest window, frowning as he peered at the pavement. It was dry. Joe supposed that warm summer wind could have dried the pavement in the hours since the storm stopped, but that didn't explain the lack of puddles anywhere...surely not all could have dried out! A crazy idea began to swirl in his head...but not any crazier than a Boeing jet from the sixties cruising into Eppley airfield. "Frank...what if we're in a different time zone? Time, I mean."

"How could that be?" Frank asked, shaking his head slowly. "We haven't moved anywhere like Captain Young's flight did. We've stayed in the same place."

"Right, right," said Joe, feeling feverish. "But Frank, the dawn...dawn did—" As Joe's eyes swept the large terminal, his eyes happened to catch the sight outside one of the east-facing windows, and he stared; the sky was gray, a faint, yellow shimmer gracing the horizon. Sunrise, then. Joe looked down at his watch and saw that it now read 8:30 in the morning. A ludicrous time of day for a mid-summer sunrise. "It's rising now." Joe was suddenly absolutely certain his hunch was right. "Frank, it makes sense! I mean it's not far away from our normal time, I dunno, a week or so? Because the building hasn't changed...but it would explain everything. The flash that ended the storm...it _didn't_ end the storm. It just zapped us back to some time where there _wasn't_ any storm. There're no puddles outside, dawn came late..." He looked again at his watch, and saw that several others were doing the same.

"It makes a crazy sort of sense," murmured Captain Porter, also looking at his watch. "The timepieces didn't stop, but that makes sense. They're not tied into some cosmic timekeeper...they're constructed to move their hands at a certain speed, so a sudden time change wouldn't affect them. An atomic clock, now...maybe...but..."

"Someone pass out the straight-jackets," someone from flight 133 muttered, and the crowd laughed. It was a nervous laugh, but it lowered the tension level a good deal.

"So what do we do about it?" asked Joe.

"Well," said Captain Thomas, stepping forward, "We've been talking about that, too. We're going to check out outside, and see what we find. If we can get any kind of communications up and running, we can go about seeing how far-spread this thing is. And if we can pinpoint some kind of origin..."

A sort of exotic, terrifying exhilaration began to worm into Joe's chest at the idea. He and Frank had faced down people with guns, arrows, poison darts, tasers, and all manner of other random weapons. They had been in a whole lot of tight spots, and completed missions in nearly every part of the world. But this...this was something impossible, a thing that Joe could never have expected to be involved with in a million years. The idea of even stepping outside, after all of this weirdness scared the hell out of him, but that only added to the attraction. Finally he laughed. "Count me in."

Captain Porter frowned, his expression concerned. "Now, son, I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"Honestly, Captain," said Frank, "You'd have to lock him in a cage to keep him from going out there. Not that it's a bad idea." He grinned at Joe, who sent a glaring look of indignation his way.

Choosing to ignore his brother for the moment, Joe said, "Well, so long as we have some kinda plan, there shouldn't be too much danger, really. The airport personnel have been outside to check the planes and the generators, so we know we won't be zapped the moment we step outside at least." Ironically, once he remembered that, some of his own fear eased.

"That's true," said Captain Thompson, running a hand through her hair once in a gesture of distraction. "There's that at least."

"A group of us could sorta scout out the area while the others work on establishing some kind of communications," began Frank, but he was cut off by Captain Porter.

"I think that we can manage to put a game plan together without your help, young man." He turned to the other two pilots, who looked a bit taken-aback, and said, "We shouldn't be discussing this in front of the crowd, anyway. That was a mistake."

"Oh, bullcrap." The fat man from the Chicago flight stepped forward then, a new (though unlit) cigarette in his mouth, and a scowl on his face. "This affects us as much as it affects you. And I don't care just how much flying experience you've got under your hat, captain, I'd say that none of it prepared you for being thrown into a time warp." There was a general mutter of agreement, from both the 2006 passengers, and the ones from the Boeing.

"Seems to me," said a young woman carrying a toddler in her arms, "that we all should help in making these plans. There're plenty of folks here who could be a lot of help to you. My husband fought in Korea, and he's still in top physical form. Those two young men seem to have this thing half figured out already." She indicated Frank and Joe, and Joe felt himself flush. But he was pleased. He wasn't used to people standing up for him in this way.

Porter's own face was reddish purple, and it was obvious he was about to lose his temper. He took a big breath, forcing himself to calm down. Joe suspected he wasn't used to being talked to like that, nor having his opinion so blatantly contradicted.

Captain Young laid a hand on his shoulder. "Can't hurt, friend," he said. "Maybe these folks can come up with some ideas."

Porter threw his hands up finally in a gesture of sheer exasperation. "Fine," he said curtly. "Let's bring everyone into it. Why not? If what that kid says is true, I can't see how anyone could possibly make it worse." With that, he fell silent, choosing to watch the proceedings from the edge of the group.

"Nice guy," Joe muttered as Frank and Captain Thompson approached.

"He's not a bad guy," said Thompson. "He can get a little bossy at times, and doesn't like his authority being challenged, but I imagine he'll be in here making plans with everyone else soon. What we have to worry about now is who's gonna go on this little expedition."

"We're in," said Joe and Frank immediately.

"Well, I was wondering, Frank, if you might not be of more help with the computers. It was obvious up there as we were talking about the failed communications that you know your way around them." But Frank was shaking her head, and Thompson frowned, trailing off.

"We work together," said Frank firmly. "We're a team, and work best that way. We've run into enough problems by getting separated, and avoid it whenever possible. Within one building is one thing, but I don't want to separate quite that far."

The woman blinked, but shrugged in an agreeable sort of way. "All right. Well, I suppose we put together a small group, say half a dozen people, to scout out the surrounding blocks?"

"Sounds good to me," said Frank. "For a start, that's really all the plan we need."

"Do we have to clear it by anyone?" asked Joe.

"That'd be me." The new voice made them all look up to see that Caleb Brown and the two male pilots had joined their conversation. A navigator from United had also joined in, listening with interest. Caleb Brown was the man they had met in the control tower, and Joe was glad that he was in charge, not Porter. Brown was a lot more personable, no to mention less narrow-minded.

"Well, we figured a group of six or so could take a little walk," said Captain Thompson. These two boys, myself perhaps, and one of the security crew. Perhaps one or two people from among the passengers. We could bring radios, and the security guards are armed."

Caleb brown gazed at them all for a few moments, looking at Frank and Joe, then at the adults gathered around. Finally he shrugged, then sighed. "It's as good a plan as any," he said. "I'm honestly out to sea on this. Let's track down that lady's husband, a military man's a good sort to have on this kind of expedition. See if there's anyone else who might be of use in a short expedition. Meanwhile we'll see what we can do in the way of communications."

"Good," said Thompson quietly. "We'll do that now, then."

Young spoke up, sounding a little apologetic. "If it's not too much trouble, and you've the resources, we'd not mind a good meal. Our flight was not of the type that serves one, and it's been a long day. Promises to be an even longer one."

As Joe looked at him, then at Thompson and Porter, the differences in the uniforms struck him. Young seemed so archaic...like something from an old movie. Joe almost expected his colors to be washed out, like the movies from that era, but of course they weren't. His uniform was no replica, but the real deal, brand new and crisp in color. But it was still old! Joe could see it, even smell it and feel it. His mind reeled with the ideas that time periods could be so fundamentally different.

"It's about time for breakfast, anyway," said Thompson. "We'll see to that, get some food in us—"

"And coffee," Brown broke in, and she chuckled.

"Yes, that too. Then we can head out."

Breakfast was not complicated; an array of individual cereal boxes were brought out, along with plastic bowls and small cartons of milk. Ten minutes later, everyone was sitting down, talking excitedly and eating their cold breakfast. Joe and Frank sat with the others who would be a part of their little scout group; the ex-soldier was a man of thirty-five or so named Henry, and one of the people from the Hardys' own flight had asked to join as well. He had a camera, and thinking that a picture-record would be a good thing (and the man knew how to take good pictures), Brown had okayed him.

When breakfast was finished, the Hardys went to their corner, looking through their carry-on bags for anything that could be of use. Joe took the cell phone and his own camera, and grabbed the light jacket he had brought...just in case. Frank brought his notebook and a pencil, making sure he had an eraser as well. "Enough for a short trip," he said, and Joe nodded.

When they all met at the security checkpoint, Caleb Brown was there, looking oddly reluctant. But he said nothing about changing his mind, only told them to be careful. "Keep in touch with these," he said, handing everyone a two-way radio like the ones security used. "Thompson's going to be the only one doing most the communication, but if someone gets into any kind of trouble, use the radios. They're working okay within the building, and we figure so long as nothing really weird happen, you should be able to use them to contact us here."

'Good idea,' Joe thought, taking his and clipping it onto his waistband. That giddy excitement was taking hold of him again, and he couldn't wait to get started. It seemed about an hour before they were finally ready to leave.

As Thompson began to lead her group out of the terminal, everyone was silent, watching. Joe scanned their faces and saw expression ranging from nervous to excited, even some that were utterly bored with the whole affair. Joe himself was nervous and excited both as he walked lightly behind Frank, his sneakers making little noise on the tiled floor. The scout group was quiet, too, perhaps dealing with their own nervousness.

The sun had risen completely by the time the group stood in the lobby downstairs, a lobby normally bustling with activity. Joe looked at the deserted baggage check-in counters, all watched over by the airline logos that decorated the walls behind. Creepy, indeed.

"All right," said Captain Thompson quietly, startling Joe out of his heebie-jeebies. "I want Jake up front." She nodded to the grim-faced security guard who had volunteered for escort duty. "And Lieutenant? Is that correct?"

The military man from the 1960's American Airlines flight smiled slightly and nodded. "That's correct, ma'am."

"All right, if you'd take the rear guard, I'd appreciate it. Once we're outside and things seem okay, we can walk as a group, but for now, we'll stay in a single file line. And everyone be ready."

The young man with the camera nodded nervously, looking briefly down to his photo equipment and making some kind of adjustment to the lens. Joe knew very little about photography, so he had no idea what the guy was doing; that was more Frank's thing. Joe preferred the digital kind that didn't take a technical degree to operate.

He didn't know about anyone else, but Joe held his breath as Jake the security guard first stepped out of the revolving door that led into the airport. Frank's expression was as tense as Joe felt as the guard stepped out alone with his sidearm drawn – he had to force the revolving doors open, and it would have been very difficult to get more than one person in the tiny space – but nothing horrible happened. In fact it seemed a perfectly normal morning as Jake stood blinking in the light, then turned and made a "come on" gesture to the rest.

One by one the group pushed their way past the powerless revolving doors and into the bright sunshine. Nothing _seemed_ amiss; the sun was summer-warm, the buildings seemed undamaged, and there were even some people in the streets, now, Joe saw. What disturbed him was that it wasn't nearly as busy here downtown as it should be, and those people he did see seemed dazed or confused. At the sight of the scout group, in fact, most of them walked away as quickly as they could.

"I bet most people are hiding," murmured Frank. "They'll not like all this weird stuff any more than we do."

"Yeah," Joe said. "I'd say you'd win that bet."

Except for the cautious behavior of the people, and the inexplicable lateness of the sunrise, they found nothing of much interest. Captain Thompson managed find a few people who would stop and talk to her, but no one had any kind of idea what had happened. If it were not for Joe's own memories of the previous night, and the presence of a man from a flight that had come straight from 1966, he would have thought nothing _did_ happen. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

Until they reached the center of the downtown area, that was.

Omaha was no New York City, but it had its share of tall buildings and visual obstructions. These buildings were the only reason the little group didn't see it sooner, which made it that much more of a shock. The first of their group, the captain and the guard, stepped around a whole, intact building of four stories or so then stopped short with a gasp of shock. Frank and Joe rushed forward, and Joe half expected to be stopped by the security guard, but he, too, was gaping in horror.

It was leveled. The entire area before them, and what might be miles' worth of city blocks lay in ruins, crumbled to the ground as if a terrible earthquake had rumbled through, toppling the buildings and burning half the area.

"What happened?" Joe heard someone whisper, the kid with the camera, he realized.

"I dunno, son," said the army lieutenant, who had stopped up with the rest. His tone was calm, almost matter of fact, but his expression was dismayed and unbelieving. "But you might want to snap a picture or two."

The boy blinked. "Huh? Oh! Yeah. I-I'll...I'll do that." He raised the camera he wore around his neck and stepped away from the others a bit to get a clear shot, and Joe wondered if he would get _any_ clear shots, the way he was shaking. He decided to snap a few pictures of his own.

"What could have done this?" Frank asked, shaking his head in disbelief. "It's impossible, only...only some...some kind of natural disaster or bombing could've done this. Do you think it was the tornado that came through? Did that cause all of this?"

"It's an awfully wide swath of damage for a tornado," Captain Thompson murmured. "And that tornado was over on the Iowa side of the river, anyway, in Pottawattamie County. Since it's so close to us, the warning extended to Douglas county as well."

"Which is what we're in," finished Frank. "But then...what?"

"Well, I reckon there's only one way to find out," said the lieutenant. "Let's go and check it out."

They moved slowly, far more slowly than they had been walking a minute before, and Joe didn't blame them. Aside from the situation itself being terrifying, the ground itself was littered with debris of all kinds. And he was beginning to notice something that disturbed him even more than the idea of some tornado tearing down several city blocks. Frank obviously noticed it, too.

"Um, guys?" he said, looking down between his feet. Everyone stopped as Frank knelt down and tentatively touched the ground they were all standing on. What had at first seemed like rock wasn't rock, after all. The dark soil was littered with large chunks of concrete, overgrown with weeds and grasses, and eroded so badly it was no wonder they all thought it was stone. "This wasn't done recently."

"What do you mean, not recently?" asked the kid with the camera uneasily. "Of course it was done recently. I was only here a few days ago with my parents."

"He's right," murmured Captain Thompson, also kneeling. She grasped a chunk of concrete, fighting with it for a few moments before she was able to pry it out of the ground. "Look. Look how deep it's been buried, look at the grasses!" Her tone was taking on a sort of sick quality, and her face was pale. Joe didn't blame her; he felt sick, himself!

"So, what happened?" asked Jake, the guard. He was not kneeling down, apparently wanting to stay alert in case of trouble, but his distracted glances at the ruined sidewalk were uneasy. "You saying that, I dunno, we all got thrown back in time, or something?"

"More like forward," Frank murmured, peering into the dark hole left in the ground after Thompson removed the concrete stone. Bugs Joe couldn't identify were crawling around in the soil. "After...after a disaster, maybe."

"It all looks aged," said Joe, looking down. "As if they just crumbled on their own. Look, only a couple of buildings are even halfway standing, and even those look like they could fall down at any moment. Just what in the hell happened?"

"It couldn't have been everywhere," said the kid with the camera nervously. He was taking the finished roll of film out and putting it into his camera bag. Fishing around for a fresh roll, he said, "I mean, if that was so, we'd all be dead, and Eppley would be dust."

Everyone exchanged a startled glance; the kid had a point!

"Not necessarily, son,' said the lieutenant thoughtfully. "You're right about the airfield, sure, but the people? My year is 1966. That area of town back there looks to me like something out of Buck Rogers, especially the cars we saw. But me? I'm still at my right age, not forty years older. There's a woman who was on our flight that's got to be at least eighty, and she's not dead. Whatever...whatever this is, it's worked around us."

Joe was astonished by how casually they were all talking about this, as if coming upon the ancient ruins of a city that had been just fine a week ago was an everyday thing. He supposed that once you were right there in it, it became more difficult to deny.

"Where are the people here, then?" demanded the kid, sweeping an arm at the mess that lay before them. "And for that matter, how come the airport wasn't affected?"

No one answered the questions about the people, but Joe had a sinking feeling that he already knew. If it was true, and whatever this phenomenon was working around the people, then those buildings had probably been occupied when they were aged into the ground. Anyone who managed to survive had likely fled.

Joe's horrified realization was cut short by Frank's sudden warning cry, "Joe, look out!"

Instantly alert, ready for anything, Joe dropped to the ground and rolled, noting the army guy and the captain had done the same thing. The kid with the camera ducked behind a half-crumbled statue, and Jake whirled around, his handgun crashing in his hands. Joe looked around wildly as something made a horrid screech and landed with a heavy thump on the concrete.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Joe was stunned for several moments, as everyone stared. Then Frank came over and helped Joe to his feet.

"Thanks," Joe murmured. They embraced briefly before turning to see what it was the guard had shot.

It lay motionless, face-down, and it had wings; that was about all Joe could see for certain. The thing was huge, far bigger than any bird he'd ever seen, and its wings were short; Joe didn't know how it had stayed in the air at all. "What the hell is it?"

"Bird of some kind," said the camera kid, taking a picture. "It's huge, is it a condor?"

"No," said Frank, shaking his head. "Condors had far wider wingspans...and it _was_ flying, Joe, it was diving right at you, and that thing's got talons like a velociraptor."

"Oh," said Joe, stepping back a couple of steps. "Lovely."

"Don't!" exclaimed the kid with the camera, as Frank stepped forward and gave the creature a cautious nudge with his foot. He stumbled, nearly landing on his face, as it was clear the beast was far lighter than he'd expected. Joe stepped forward to steady him and looked down at the bird with mounting disgust.

The mystery of how it stayed in the air was instantly solved, looking at the thing now from the front. Its chest and its torso region were caved in, nearly flat, curving out towards its back. It didn't have any guts, to speak of, Joe was sure of that; there wasn't any room, and thus would have hardly any weight to lift. Its legs extended from the base of the thing's wings, and were tipped by wicked-looking claws, just as Frank had said. They were longer than any bird talons Joe had even seen. It was maybe three feet high, covered in oily-looking, dark brown feathers, and its face was as flat as a Persian Cat's. In fact it looked a little _like_ a Persian cat, with a beak in place of its nose. Its head, where the guard had shot it, had nearly disintegrated from the bullet, looking as if it were made of fragile glass, not bone.

"My god," whispered the kid. Worried the kid might faint – his face was dead white – Joe put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, but the kid waved him off distractedly. "No, no, I'm okay,' he said faintly. "Thanks...man, my mom and dad are gonna be shocked at _these_ vacation photos." And he began to take pictures again.

"We should head out," said Captain Thompson finally, shaking her head and backing away. "If there's one, there might be more. I'm no biologist, but I'd bet my house this is nothing you'd ever find in an encyclopedia. If this is what happened to the birds, I'd hate to meet a lion or something. The Henry Doorly Zoo's not far away, and who knows what madness had gone down over there."

Joe grimaced at the idea. "You're right, let's head back. But what do we tell the others?"

"The truth," said Thompson. "And we can decide from there what we do."

---

The truth turned out to be far more difficult to tell than any of them could anticipate. No one seemed to want to believe it, and Joe supposed he didn't blame them. Even after delayed sunsets, freak storms, and the arrival of an airplane from forty years ago, people still didn't want to believe such a bizarre thing could happen. Too many humans had a sort of mental security system that kept things out that were too bizarre for them to handle.

Joe, on the other hand, _preferred_ the bizarre. He was sick with worry about his family and friends, and confused as hell as to how _any_ of this could happen, but even with all of that, he was enjoying himself. Frank was of the opinion Joe needed to see a shrink when he admitted this, but that was okay; Frank was probably right.

Captain Thompson's scout group spent half the morning trying to convince people of what they'd all seen, and the rest of the morning convincing some of the more stubborn ones not to go too far if they wandered outside.

"We shoulda brought the bird," Frank whispered. "You think that would convince them?"

It probably would, but the sheep would just convince themselves the bird was some clever fakery. Joe sighed. At least they had a group of maybe twenty people who believed the captain and her group, and said that they would help if they could.

And so an hour later, over lunches of cold sandwiched and apple juice, they discussed. And discussed. And discussed. Someone brought up the possibility of radiation poisoning, which made the Hardys uneasy. It would certainly describe the horrid mutation of the bird thing they had found, which meant for all they knew, they'd already been exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation. 'Well, if I develop brain cancer or something in the next month, I'll know,' Joe thought moodily as he picked at the second half of his sandwich. He wasn't hungry all of a sudden.

The talk seemed to go on and on, droning into the background, and Joe's mind had long begun to wander when Frank shook him suddenly. "Joe!" he exclaimed.

Shocked out of his daze, Joe sat up straight, alarmed, sure that something weird was bearing down on them, ready to attack. "What? What?"

Frank blinked, and then chuckled, putting up a calming hand. "Easy, little brother. Seems like you zoned out there a little. But this lady here mentioned something we might wanna listen to."

"Oh." Feeling his heart begin to beat a little more calmly, Joe settled back into his seat and gave the assembled people a sheepish grin. "Sorry. What was the current topic?"

The woman Frank had indicated answered him, looking irritated that Joe hadn't been paying attention. "Black holes," she said curtly. "We were talking of the subject of black holes. You see, one of the current theories is that within a black hole, time itself is warped. The closer you get to the event horizon, that is, the last safe place of orbit you can achieve around such a black hole without being drawn in, the slower time goes. If the Earth had, perhaps, slipped into such a black hole..." She shrugged. "On the subject of time travel, things start to seem less and less crazy."

It was obvious a great many crazy things had been discussed while Joe had been daydreaming, but this struck a particular chord, and he looked at Frank in astonishment. Frank had already made the connection, and nodded grimly. "Yeah," he said. "Just what I was thinking."

"What's on your mind, son?" asked the lieutenant. He had put away his sidearm, but he still had it on him, and Joe found that he was glad. Neither he nor Frank (nor their dad, for that matter) cared much for the use of guns, but this was one situation that Joe was glad of them, especially after the attack of the mutated bird-creature earlier. He saw several guards at the discussion, too, all armed.

"Well..." said Joe. "Well first of all, I dunno if any of you are familiar with any or our work, but we're detectives, Frank and I."

As expected, there were various scoffs and expressions or skepticism from the assembled adults, but Joe saw a few faces light in recognition or realization.

"We mostly help our father, Fenton Hardy," Frank clarified. "But have solved several of our own cases. Believe that as you will. However, our latest case involved a missing person...an easy case, in comparison to some. The important thing was, this guy worked at a lab...maybe some of you saw a news report about a week ago about their attempts to recreate the effects of a black hole?"

Joe saw that many had, by the gasps of realization and the looks of dismay. Some still looked skeptical, and Joe noticed many of these were from the old American Airlines flight. He didn't blame them, either! He supposed that in 1966, the idea of making a black hole...something Joe didn't even know if they knew about yet...was ludicrous.

"So you think maybe this experiment got out of hand?" asked Jake, the guard who had been in the scout party.

"Possibly," said Frank. "The lab is right around here...maybe we should go over and talk to our client. It was his lab that paid for our ticket home, which is why we've stopped here in Nebraska; his lab is just over the border in Iowa. If we're lucky...it's still there."

"Well then, ladies and gentlemen." said the lieutenant, standing up. "Sounds like we've got ourselves a course of action. Let's not sit around any longer then, and head on over to Council Bluffs."

Joe was all for that; the endless discussions were beginning to wear very thin, but of course others had their doubts. What if they wouldn't talk to us? What if they got flung so far into the future that the black hole had _grown_? Or maybe so far in the past that it wasn't even there? What if...

Captain Thompson finally ended the debate. "We know we can't go on as we are now," she said. "And this seems the only thing left to try. I say we go for it."

Well, there was that, and no one could dispute it. Joe was more than ready, and let whatever might be out there take its best shot.

---

The group going to visit the laboratory was smaller, but better prepared. For one, they were able to use a car. Joe remembered the generators beginning to work, and the 1966 plane that had coasted in, and figured that whatever messed things up had only temporarily shorted out the machines. The kid with the camera opted out, as did Jake the security guard. The ones left were the Hardys, the lieutenant (whose name Joe finally learned: Sherman Morgan), and Captain Thompson. One of the airline employees volunteered the use of his Hummer, an ex-military vehicle that might be of the best use on their mission. He handed the keys over to Captain Thompson, admonishing her to bring it back in one piece.

"My driving's not that bad," said the captain with a laugh, taking the offered keys.

They also had backpacks full of rations (just in case), a couple of guns from the security officers) also just in case) and various, useful implements like hunting knives, rope, and other camping-type gear. One never knew when the car might cut out, or they'd need the survival gear for some reason.

Finally, all seemed ready, and Captain Thompson looked at her three companions. "All right, team, let's head out."

To Joe's disgust, the man's Hummer was pink. Neon pink. Frank wasn't any more impressed by the color, but didn't care whether not he rode in it, and was way too amused at Joe's own distaste. "I'm glad none of the guys'll see this," Joe muttered, climbing into the back seat of the shockingly-colored vehicle and wondering why the blazes a man would paint his car pink, much less the neon pink that coated the poor Hummer. "I'd never live it down."

The trip through the easternmost part of Omaha was uneventful; Eppley was right on the border, and there was hardly any land to drive through. It was just over the river and into Iowa. On top of that, the highway was completely deserted. Even the first few miles of Iowa countryside were uneventful. "What's the name of this lab again?" asked Captain Thompson.

"Mid-America Physics and Astronomy," answered Joe, before Frank could. Joe liked to answer questions when he knew the answers, because Frank almost always remembered things better than Joe. "And here." He rummaged in his own backpack and dug out the card that McDougal had given them. "The address is there."

Lieutenant Sherman Morgan, sharing the back seat with Joe, looked a little puzzled as Thompson reached back and took the card. "Why would they print the address of a secret lab right on a business card?"

"Well the lab's no secret," said Frank. "They do a lot of normal, every day business there. But some of its research is top secret."

"Ah, that makes a little more sense." But Morgan still looked a little uneasy. "Just be careful."

It was good advice. As they drove, the captain slowed the Hummer down, and told the others to be ready.

"What's up?" asked Joe, grabbing the back of Frank's seat and pulling himself forward to see. Frank shot him a brief, aggravated glance, but Joe ignored him, squinting ahead. "What the—is it _snowing_?"

"Yeah," muttered Frank uneasily. "And all across our path, too...if it's like this all the way back to the lab..."

Joe cursed mildly as Captain Thompson drove carefully into the impossible blizzard that raged only yards ahead. Joe saw with fascination that the flakes close to the hot side of the line were melting as they fell, but raged full force beyond. "Another time? Last winter, maybe? Why the hell aren't the temperatures colliding and merging, and, I dunno, making a hell of a storm?"

"It's not any time close to now," said Thompson tersely, as she drove carefully into the storm. "No road."

Joe gasped as the temperature in the Hummer seemed to drop immediately about sixty degrees. He heard Thompson turn on the car heater and wondered how long that would hold back the fatal chill. 'If I'd known Nebraska in the summer was this cold!' he thought insanely as he wrapped his arms around himself.

The Hummer had fantastic traction, which was lucky, but even it was slipping and sliding over rough terrain now. Joe bit his lip and sat back, buckling his seat belt. 'Shoulda done that first,' he thought.

A sudden, hard THUD at the back of the Hummer startled everyone, and Frank let a small, alarmed cry. "Another car?" he asked nervously as Thompson fought to keep them straight. Though without other cars around, Joe didn't figure it much mattered.

"I-I don't know, I can't see out of the back window." Joe spun around to see and realized it was frosted over, and the side windows were catching up fast. "I-I see s-something in the side v-view, but--" The woman's voice was shaking not with fear, but with cold, and she did not slow down. "W-we n-need to drive fast...get as far as we safely can, see if i-it c-comes out somewhere."

Frank was nodding in agreement with the woman's plan, even though he was shivering, too, and looked absolutely miserable. What had the temperature dropped to? Thirty below? Sixty? Was it winter or summer? And what of the wind chill? How low could it be before it was fatal?

Luckily he didn't have to find out. "Ahead," gritted out Thompson, shivering so hard she could barely keep the Hummer no the road. And the Hummer itself seemed to be getting sluggish, too. Joe looked and was relieved to see swatches of tan and gold through the blowing snow, getting more and more clear as they neared.

"Hurry," Joe shuddered out, huddling in his seat. Why hadn't they thought to bring cold-weather gear, anyway? The Hummer's heater wasn't doing a damned thing.

When they crossed the time-line once more, it was just as big a shock, from sub-zero winter to 85-degree, humid summer. Joe gasped, feeling his ears pop, and wondered with brief panic if the pressure change was going to screw up his body too royally. The adventure was losing just a bit of its appeal! The thing that had collided with them hadn't shown itself, and though Joe was curious, he was also glad they didn't have to deal with it.

"Thank God," hissed Frank, maneuvering clumsy hands to open his window. A blast of hot air hit Joe, making him gasp for breath, but he didn't ask Frank to close it. It felt too good, and his breathing evened out soon enough. Still shivering, he slumped back in his seat. Frank turned around, looking concerned. "You okay, little brother?"

"Yeah," Joe gasped, squinting at Frank's face. Was his own that pale? It made him worry, himself! "Are you? You're white as a sheet."

"I will be soon. I'll be even better once we get to this twice-damned lab."

"Amen to that," said Morgan fervently. "How long, Captain?"

"Close," said the captain tersely. "Close...few miles at the most. Just hang in there and hold on." Now that she was on solid terrain, asphalt, Captain Thompson smoothly depressed the accelerator until they were going at least seventy miles an hour. And so long as the road stayed smooth, that was just fine with Joe.

At that speed, it took very little time to reach the lab, but the Hardys both got a big surprise. On the newscast, the lab had looked like any other ordinary building, except for the observatory dome at one end. But now it was surrounded by guards with guns, and more than one of those guns swiveled in their direction as the Hummer drove up. Thompson cursed in surprised alarm and decreased her speed dramatically before they got anywhere near, almost stopping the vehicle. "Damn. I can't say I've ever had a gun aimed at me...American Airline pilots don't often run into that kind of situation. Any suggestions?"

Joe leaned forward again, squinting. Frank said, "Well, for now...drive. Slowly. They're not shooting yet, though we're in range. Lieutenant, you might want to stow your weapon. If it makes these guys trigger happy..."

The man didn't seem to like the idea much, but finally he nodded and put it away. "You're probably right, son," he said. "It'd spook 'em and there're a whole lot more guns out there than we have."

"It wasn't like this before," said Joe, calmly feeling the peculiar sensation of his heart speeding up, of the adrenaline buzzing in his head. It was strange to him that he could feel so completely jazzed and ready, and still so calm. But it was always like this in danger, especially when someone pointed a gun at him. "It wasn't guarded like this."

"Then I'd say it's a good bet we're in the right place," said Frank, watching with his fists clenched as the Hummer slowly approached the first set of guards. One of them, a grim-faced woman with brown hair, kept her gun on the car while the other aimed his up and approached. Joe took a deep breath as Captain Thompson rolled down the window.

"What business have you here?" asked the guard. There were circles under his eyes, and it looked as if he'd gotten about as much sleep as Frank and Joe had. Maybe less.

"We're...we're here to see..." Captain Thompson slowly brought up the business card, and Joe clenched back the urge to flinch as the male guard took a step backward, his muscles tautening, but he did not level the gun at them again. They were big rifles, too, the ones the National Guard used. Thompson took a big breath and read, "Hiram McDougal. We're here to see him. My name is Captain Jennifer Thompson, a pilot with American Airlines. I have with me Lieutenant Morgan...military, army, though...well the situation's...unusual. And Frank and Joe Hardy." She nodded to them all in turn.

"'Unusual'. That's one word for it," muttered the man guard, but Joe was able to relax a little, because the guard's weapon went from a ready position to more of an at-ease position. "Go ahead," he told them. "Slowly. And make sure you have ID, you Hardys. You're expected."

Frank and Joe exchanged a surprised look as Thompson thanked the man and did as he bade, driving slowly towards the unassuming little building in the middle of the grasslands. "Guess we shouldn't be all too surprised," said Frank after a moment. "He seemed to trust us pretty good, and he knows of our reputation for being way too nosy for our own good."

At this, everyone laughed a little, and the tension went down a little more. But Joe could not let himself relax completely, not after all the traps he and Frank had been lured into during their short careers. His base instinct was that it was legitimate, but he still had that lingering paranoia, as usual.

But the setup was indeed legitimate, and after everyone had showed their identification (and surprisingly they didn't even blink at Morgan's badly outdated army ID and driver's license), they were allowed to approach the building. It was clear that McDougal had been informed of the Hardys' arrival, for he was standing in the outer office of the labs, actually wringing his hands and looking as if Satan himself had paid him a visit.

"Wondered if I'd be seeing you," he muttered as the four of them entered. He hook hands briefly with Thompson and Morgan after the Hardys introduced them, then gestured for the group to follow him. "And I imagine you have some interesting stories to tell."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The scientist took them into a back room, closing the door and locking it, and inviting them all to sit down at a plain wooden table. The room was plain, too, with only a small coffee station at one end, some filing cabinets, and a chalkboard; a generic meeting room, then.

After the Hardys, Captain Thompson, and Lieutenant Morgan had finished their tales, McDougal was wide-eyed with fascination. Excitement shone in his eyes, and Joe was at once irritated and amused. Even now, with some sort of time disaster upon them, the scientist was fascinated by the strangeness and the effects of the experiment he had worked on.

"Incredible," he whispered, shaking his head. "Well, we knew something had gone wrong. You said you saw the news report," he said of the Hardys, who nodded in agreement. "We said there that we were several weeks from being able to crush our asteroid-mass into a black hole? Well, that estimate was hugely erroneous. It seemed that once we got past a certain point of crushing this mass down, it almost began to do it on its own, like a real black hole would. With our help, with the vacuums, the presses, and everything else we've been using to break it all down, it began almost to suck itself into itself. To implode, almost."

"So you got your black hole," said Morgan, sounding skeptical.

"Oh, indeed, we did," said McDougal excitedly.

"So what went wrong?" asked Frank.

At this, McDougal's smile faded, and he sighed, slumping back in his chair. "I don't know. I know that's a horrible answer, but...here's all that we've been able to figure out. We had JUST gotten our asteroid-mass black hole created...asteroid-mass, as we've been calling it. The storm had already begun, as you all know. Normally the storm would be no big deal, for our facility is well-equipped to handle thunderstorms, but the tornado..."

"Oh, jeez," said Joe with a wince. "It hit?"

"It did," said McDougal grimly. "It only clipped the building, and destroyed a small part of it. But something...and this is where our data simply stops...something happened. The chamber the black hole was in was breached, and something, perhaps air pressure or lightning from the storm, or something in the tornado itself, arced directly through the black hole. There is incredible energy, and some say even the ability to travel through time in a black hole. We had already gotten light to bend into it, and watched miniscule objects being sucked within and crushed to become part of the black hole's mass."

Joe frowned, putting the heels of his hands briefly against his eyes, trying to sort it all out. "So you think maybe it sucked something else in?" he asked. "Some wild agent, something you couldn't predict?"

McDougal grinned suddenly. "Exactly, my boy! Something got into it...and was slingshotted by it." As Joe's expression grew blank again, McDougal tried to explain. "Now there have long been theories that we still cannot confirm nor refute, that if one were to fly straight at the sun's gravitational pull, survive its heat, and have enough power not to be pulled right into the sun...that he could use the immense speed the sun's gravitational pull would give it to slingshot it around the sun, back the way it came. This theory says that time travel could be possible using this as a sort of catalyst."

"Like in Star Trek 4, Joe, said Frank with a wry grin. "Remember at the end, they did that loop around the sun?"

Understanding flicked Joe's eyes open wide again, and he laughed. "Oh! Okay, I got it. Yeah, that was a pretty neat idea, I thought. I didn't know it was a real theory."

McDougal smiled thinly. "It is. Well, what we think happened is that some energy force was drawn into our little black hole, and slingshotted _through_, not around it. Through the absolute middle, where we also think time travel may be possible. And where it struck, there radiated out this...this circle of...destruction. We thought it was destruction at first, that is."

Joe felt just a little bit sick. "What could escape a black hole's gravity like that?" he asked.

But McDougal was shaking his head. "Remember our black hole was extremely tiny. Miniscule, compared to even the smallest naturally occurring holes. Anything big enough or traveling fast enough to escape the gravity of an asteroid could get through it." The scientist sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. He probably did.

The lieutenant spoke up then, his tone rather dry. "Sounds to me like you boys were fooling around with something you didn't know enough about. Either that, or your precautions against outer interference were shoddy."

McDougal shot the army man a dirty look, but his cheeks were also turning pink, which told Joe the lieutenant was probably right. Choosing to ignore the comment (and not really needing to answer, anyway) McDougal said, "Now we have no clue what happened. Only that whatever energy coursed through our black hole hit about fifteen miles away."

"And did what?" asked Captain Thompson.

McDougal said nothing, but it wasn't because he was embarrassed, or because he was trying to evade her question. The bemused, frustrated expression on the man's face told Joe that he had no clue whatsoever, and was casting desperately for an answer. Finally he just shook his head. "We have no idea. We have sought answers for the last twelve hours straight. None of have slept a damned wink."

"Well," said Captain Thompson, "it sounds to me you could use some fresh outlooks. Obviously, this all here has gone way beyond your scientific calculations--" the scientist's cheeks went pink again, "—and we've had far more rest than you have. Maybe we can offer some fresh viewpoints."

Finally McDougal only nodded, the pink fading from his cheeks, leaving his face looking pale and stressed. Joe kind of felt sorry for the guy. "Yes, perhaps you could. Well, I suppose the first thing would be to show you the black hole."

Even Joe felt excited at that idea. To him, black holes really were things out of sci-fi movies and books, but to _see_ one...a _real_ one, even in a scaled-down version!

The authorization for the group to see the project took surprisingly little time. The Hardys had a good reputation, and of course they had found McDougal and gotten him back safely. "And anyway," was the dry comment from one of the lab's guards as he escorted the group towards the back of the building, "what more could you possibly do that we haven't done ourselves?" He had a point, though no one was so tactless as to say so.

"Well," said McDougal, pausing dramatically before a metal door with "ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORIZATION" stenciled right on the painted surface. The man looked nervous, and Joe supposed he was not used to showing off his work to anyone outside his own circle, much less people who weren't even scientists of any kind. "Well. Well here it is...now I ask you when you get inside not to try and touch it. It could knock it off kilter, could drive it off balance...anything. The tornado forced energy through it, but luckily did not dislodge it from its place...else who knows what might have happened then? But you may get close." Joe raised a brow, wondering if the man was stalling. Finally McDougal turned to the door, opening it with a key and letting them all inside.

When Joe stepped through, he fully expected something far more impressive than what he first saw stepping through the door. The lab was a vast room, filled with filing cabinets, cupboards, tables, and counters. In fact except for the computers that lined one wall, it looked a lot like the chemistry lab at Bayport High School.

One far corner of the room was gone, crumbled into debris from floor to ceiling, and had been covered with industrial-thickness plastic sheeting. The plastic was held on by duct tape, which nearly made Joe burst into laughter. The opening was about three feet wide, and through the wavery plastic, Joe could see that several guards were posted out there as well.

And then he saw it. A gasp from Frank told Joe he had seen it at the same time, but Joe did not look at him. His gaze was riveted by the amazing phenomenon that hovered at the far end of the room.

The contraption was all open, which Joe had not expected, even after being admonished not to touch the black hole. It looked a little like a tall speaker's podium made of some kind of metal, coated with a light gray paint of some kind. It was hollowed out and open on the top, and it had four sides, but the sides were not attached. At each corner of this podium device was a gap of at least one foot, and through one of these gaps, Joe saw it.

It was eerie, eerier than Joe could have imagined. In the center of the open area hovered a pulsating...mass. That was about as close as Joe could get in his thinking: a mass. It hovered right in the middle, revolving quickly, a black spiral of nothingness half the size of a BB.

"Amazing," whispered Captain Thompson as the group crept over to the amazing entity. At that point, the group included three of the lab's security staff and two other astronomers who worked on the project. "Absolutely amazing."

"The containment box uses magnetism and air pressure both to keep it in place," said one of the other scientists, a woman with wire-rimmed glasses and short, almost butched blond hair. Her tone was pitched very low, as if she were afraid of waking the black hole up. "So you see why no one can just stick their hand there. It could throw everything out of whack. We have precision instruments that work with the magnets that do all the physical work we need."

Joe nodded vaguely, only barely hearing the woman, as he knelt down. He peered intently into the open area, which was perhaps two feet wide and long, and laughed in soft amazement. The black hole was blacker and darker than he thought it was possible to be, and the area around it was dim, also, lightening only towards the outside of the area. "It's sucking in the light!" he whispered, his eyes wide. "This is...freaky!" And was it sucking in sound, too. The closer he got to the thing, the more silent it seemed around it, as if the air itself was muffled.

Gooseflesh stood out suddenly on the skin beneath his sleeves, and he stood, backing away a step.

"Amazing, isn't it?" asked McDougal happily, gazing at the thing as a father might gaze on his newborn daughter.

"And you say some kind of energy, maybe lightning or the like, got forced through the center?" said Frank, frowning the way he did when trying to puzzle out something confusing.

"Yes," McDougal said, finally tearing his gaze from the miniature black hole. "Yes, I thinking it could have been lightning, or even air molecules, ripping through the black hole with tornado force. Either way, they pushed through the center, where time travel, where time warping might occur. Perhaps even time itself exists in a solid form!"

"And this...fracturing of time," said Frank, frowning yet harder, "this happened when the energy blasted out of the black hole and sorta just...what? Struck everywhere?"

McDougal nodded. "Ground zero, as I said, is about fifteen miles away; according to our sensors, things seem to radiate away from that point."

And so of course the question was: what did they do from there?

What followed then was a half hour of talking, and getting absolutely nowhere. Joe was reminded of their seemingly endless conversation back at the airport terminal, after discovering the demolished buildings and the mutated bird. It amazed him that standing next to a pin-sized miracle, that scientists and military could argue for so long about absolutely nothing. Frank asked what could be done, and the scientists managed to give long, complicated answers that told them nothing. McDougal, in particular, seemed particularly unhelpful. Joe supposed that if you took a scientist out of the carefully prepared situations they were accustomed to working in, they were pretty much out to sea.

"What if we just destroyed the black hole?" Joe asked, and felt his face burn a bit hot when everyone fell silent to look at him.

The scientists all stared, and McDougal looked horrified. "That could be a disaster!" he said fervently, shaking his head. "No, no that could be...no, that could cause ten times more damage. That should be saved only as a last-ditch effort."

Joe shrugged as if to say "no big deal", but in truth he was a little surprised at the man's demeanor. When he'd been afraid of his life, he'd acted like a mouse surrounded by hungry tomcats. But now he seemed to have gained a sort of emotional fever, making him look a little insane. And so he said no more.

"Maybe we should visit this ground zero," suggested Lieutenant Morgan. "And we can go from there."

Everyone was agreeable to this, and the scientists, in particular, were downright relieved. But their alarm to begin with was beginning to make less and less sense. Frank thought so, too. The two brothers hung back as McDougal led the way outside, and towards the vehicles. They'd decided that McDougal's group would use McDougal's own car, and the Hardys' would ride in the Hummer. "Their protests aren't making any sense," Frank said quietly as they stepped out into the sunshine.

"I know," murmured Joe. "If that thing only has the mass of a small asteroid, why would blowing it up be such a huge deal? Because of the time warp effect?"

Frank shook his head. "That can't be any worse than what's already happened, and blowing it up it's the only way to rid ourselves of it. I'm becoming more and more convinced that making this black hole was a bad idea from the start."

"You're telling me," Joe said. "Even without the tornado, it all seems so unpredictable. So why do you think the scientists are balking?"

Frank sighed, watching as McDougal's group split off to head for his car, and watched them for a few moments before turning and climbing into the backseat of the Hummer. "Its their baby, Joe. Something they've worked hard for, a real scientific breakthrough. It'd be like telling Alexander Graham bell that his telephone invention was dangerous, and that all working models and technical information had to be destroyed."

When it was put that way, Joe began to understand how McDougal and the others felt. It couldn't be easy, hearing someone say so casually that their creation should be destroyed, no matter how dangerous it was. But damn it, the world sure as blazes couldn't stay the way it was now! "How widespread do you think this is?" he asked.

Frank shook his head darkly. "I don't know."

There was silence after that, as the Hummer took off towards the area McDougal called "ground zero", following McDougal's dark red Toyota. But that was okay with Joe; he was too busy gaping out the window like a tourist from a ranch in Texas visiting New York or Tokyo for the first time.

As they left the territory of Mid-America Physics and Astronomy, the land began to fracture yet more. Joe saw a large patch of land with an unidentifiable building on it, something he was absolutely certain must come from the future. Or even another planet? Could a black hole alter space as well as time? Several buildings crowded the area, all of them tall, spiky, and made of some kind of material Joe couldn't identify. Someone or something was moving among the buildings, and Joe would have given an awful lot to see what it was, but they moved on past without stopping; it was probably a good idea, too. Joe had no idea what it was that was moving around. For all he knew, ten thousand years had made the human race into a bunch of bloodthirsty cannibals who would shoot them on sight with a Buck Rogers laser.

'For that matter, that's damned close to what we are now,' Joe thought rather glumly, thinking of some of the people he and his brother had faced down.

As they got closer and closer to their destination, the ground seemed to be patchier and patchier. An area that had to be no more than ten square yards had a thunderstorm brewing in it and ferns waving in the wind that looked like they came straight from Jurassic Park. Another jagged strip of land had sheer ice on the ground and a large area of land was covered in wildflowers. And the level of the ground was wildly different.

"Why's it doing this?" Joe asked. "Wherever that energy landed when it zapped out of that black hole...are there going to be more and more patched areas closer to ground zero?"

"Looks that way," Frank murmured. "I have this wild urge to step in one time period with one foot, another time period with the other."

Joe laughed, not because it was a silly thought, but because he had been thinking the same thing. "Kinda like when we went to Four Corners and stood with an arm and a leg in four different states." He grinned, remembering the giant concrete slab, with the crossing lines and carved letters spelling out Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah on it.

"That was when we were catching all the National Parks, wasn't it?" Frank asked.

"Yeah."

Not all of the land patches were so blatant as the one with all the space-age buildings on it. In fact most of them were just plains, and Joe knew they were in a very rural part of the country, and anything from the past up until several years in the future likely wouldn't have much on it except for earth. But even the plain patches were clearly in different time periods, showing every season and damned near every weather phenomenon there was.

The Hummer even rode through an area that was hard-packed desert sands, and in the five minutes they drove through it, Joe estimated the temperature rose until it was at least a hundred-twenty degrees, and it was dark out. That made him shiver a little, wondering when Iowa had been a lifeless desert, and trying not to let his brain hurt too much at the idea of riding at nighttime for five minutes before emerging into daylight.

"If I was a man with a weaker stomach," said Morgan, "I'd be feelin' sick about now." As it was, the man looked a little green around the gills, anyway.

The Toyota they were following stopped ten minutes later on a patch of ground that had Joe staring in disbelief. The earth looked like a patchwork quilt sewn by baboons and colored by a blindfolded dog. It was easy to see the exact place, because it was an area of blasted, burned sand about six inches across. "Electricity," Captain Thompson murmured, shaking her head slowly. "Must be to do that the earth...but look—are all these jagged splinters different _time_ periods?"

They were. Shaking a little, Joe knelt down, one foot on a stretch of blacktop, one on a patch of mud, and felt the ground. One patch of earth, perhaps a foot wide, was freezing cold. One patch had grass sprouting up. One patch was the desert sand, and was teeming with a kind of greenish ant Joe had never seen in his life. A tree sprouted out of one of the larger bits, with loose branches scattered nearby, as if another tree had only partially made it to this time period. The patches of land were at all elevations, some looking like crazy cliffs, some looking like sunken trenches. One area, perhaps five inches wide and three long, was an impossible column of water at least fifty feet high.

"That's impossible," whispered Joe.

McDougal had gotten out of his own car, looking around in fascinated delight. "No, it's not!" he said a laugh. "These areas are bound by whatever it is that's fractured the time continuum! That water...the rest of that water covers these lands in another time, but only that bit there had been brought to us! But we're not a part of the land, so we can move freely. Like those ants that are crawling over your shoes, Joe."

Startled, Joe looked down and let a yell as several of the little beasts marched up onto his sock and stung him even through the thick material. He cursed and stumbled back, stomping his foot and shaking the bugs off. "Vicious little creeps," he hissed, using a nearby mud puddle to get the rest of them off. When he was finished, his leg was covered in mud, but there were no ants.

"You know we can't just let things stand this way...don't you?" asked Frank.

McDougal looked at him, his expression dying down into a troubled frown, and he didn't answer. He knew full well things couldn't stay they way they were, but it was obvious that he didn't want to admit it. To him, this was a wonderful field trip, an opportunity he couldn't bear to let go. Joe could sympathize! Who _didn't_ want to know what happened in different time periods? If there was a way to identify the various dates, and to contain the effect safely, it would be a huge leap forward in science! No more speculating and carbon dating. But what they had was a disaster, instead.

Joe walked slowly over to the sliver of water, expecting it to crash down on his head at any moment, and slowly reached out a finger. It went right through, and Joe could only gape, feeling the warmth of the water, smelling faint brine, and watched in amazement as a small fish swam by. It wasn't like sticking his hand in a waterfall, but like poking it into the surface of mostly still water that was somehow turned on its side. "Okay this is just messed up."

"What's it like?" asked one of the scientists.

"Well...weird. Come and feel for yourself." With a sudden, impish grin, Joe contemplated the water before him, shrugged, and plunged right into it, face first. For a second he saw Frank's expression of alarm, heard him start to shout, "No, Joe!" and then he was in, suddenly floating—_floating!—_in the salty water! He was alarmed himself for just a moment, before he leaned forward and stuck his head out of the other side. For a second the rest of his body kept floating up, but he lunged forward to fall onto a patch of grass, laughing and soaking wet.

"You mad little brat!" Frank exclaimed, but he was laughing too as he came over and helped Joe up. "Crazy...I swear...I guess that's one way to beat the summer heat."

"It's definitely not anything I ever did before," said Joe. "I guess...I guess that water was a sea that covered this place when there were no polar ice caps? Man, talk about a time share."

"Or perhaps," said McDougal, "a time in the future when there are once again no ice caps. Global warming causes them to melt, a phenomenon we are experiencing now." And if that wasn't a chilly idea, nothing was.

The seven of them spent some time examining the various climates, not yet worrying what to do about it or what was going to happen next, but only indulging in their curiosity. Even Frank had to admit there was no harm in it, and if McDougal and his group got it a little bit out of their systems, perhaps they would be far more inclined to listen to reason.

Joe thought later that they all should have been paying more attention, but even Captain Thompson and Lieutenant Morgan had gotten caught up in exploration. The first quiet shuffling sounds weren't even noticed, and when the hairs on the back of Joe's neck stood straight up, he wasn't sure why.

By the time McDougal looked up and shouted a frightened warning, the bests were already upon them; Joe jerked his head up at McDougal's shout, sudden, sick panic flaring in his mind. Three of them, huge cat beasts the size of tigers, with fangs longer than any cat Joe had seen outside of illustrations. No one had any time to react before the beasts attacked.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Frank!" Joe screamed. The leading beast took the older boy down with one pounce, and Joe heard Frank's cry of pain as the saber-toothed animal landed its front paws on his shoulders. The beast snapped at Frank's head, and Frank twisted away with all his might, yanking an arm free, ripping his shirt and the skin beneath on the cat's talons. At one second, shock worked its cold way through Joe, the next he was in motion, yelling at the top of his lungs. He didn't think, he only envisioned those killer fangs sinking into his brother's neck, and he leaped as high as he could.

Joe landed on the beast's back, grabbing the beast's ears, and cursing as the saber-tooth reared up on its hind legs too quickly for Joe to be able to react. He lost his grip on the cat's ears as he shook its head, and before he could even think, jaws clamped on his wrist and yanked him off. A deep pain sank into Joe's shoulder as something pulled there, and he flew several yards away, landing on hard concrete. Stunned, the shock of pain and fear kept him still on the ground for an entire minute, sixty endless seconds during which Joe only heard the impossibly loud thud-thud of his heartbeat in his temples. 'Frank,' he thought groggily, trying to get up.

The sound of the first gunshot was almost painful, breaking through the shock-silence. Joe winced as two others sounded, and he was able to get his trembling arms beneath him, able to sit up and see what had happened. Lieutenant Morgan had his gun out, and Captain Thompson had one of the guns they'd borrowed from Security. The woman was looking surprised (and Joe saw her arm and face were both bleeding), and the lieutenant looked only grim and determined. The three attacking beasts lay dead on the pavement.

And the others?

Joe staggered gingerly to his feet, stumbling over to where his brother sat on a patch of grass, his teeth clenched and his left hand gripping his right arm; great slashes had been opened there, and blood soaked the sleeve of Frank's arm. "It's okay," he gritted out. "Not lethal...if I can stop the bleeding."

"Hold on a sec – lemme go get the first aid kits." Joe ran for the Hummer, taking a quick glance around to see who else was hurt. Thompson didn't seem too bad, and Morgan hadn't taken any injures at all. McDougal had hidden behind the Hummer itself, and was untouched, and Joe felt a certain contempt for the man. One of the other scientists had been hurt as badly, maybe worse, than Frank and was being tended by her colleague.

"That – that was amazing," McDougal whispered as Joe awkwardly rummaged through the Hummer with his left hand. His right shoulder throbbed so badly he could barely use it, and he held it tightly against his body. Joe ignored the man, grabbing the first aid kid and running over to Frank with it. He ripped the case open and found plenty of gauze, tossing a few packages over to other scientists, who nodded their thanks.

"Thanks, bro," said Frank in a low voice as Joe began to wrap his arm as tightly as he could. Frank helped out where he could, so that between the two of them, they got the job done quickly. "You okay?"

"Few scrapes,' said Joe, grimacing as he looked at his bloodied knees and elbows, felt the scraping burn on his side and back. "Man, road rash – why couldn't I have landed on the grass, or better yet, in that water?" The bite marks on his lower arm were only superficial, as the beast was wanting only to throw Joe off of him, not make Joe into its meal. They still hurt, however!

"Hiram..." It was the scientist tending to the injured one. The man's face was dead white, and his expression was grim. "They're right. We've got to destroy the black hole. This...this isn't what we wanted to happen." The injured woman was nodding her head wearily, taking in big breaths as she struggled to calm herself. Joe found that he was doing the same thing. It was always like that after action; once the danger was _over_ with, he got the shakes, and that's when the real fear hit. It didn't make sense to him, but it was true. Frank grasped his uninjured arm, and Joe smiled a little.

But Frank was shaking, too.

For a few moments, Joe actually thought McDougal was going to protest, even after two of them had nearly gotten killed by beasts from a time period modern man was never meant to see. But finally he only sighed and nodded, gazing miserably at the ground.

"Let's get back to the lab," said Thompson, "and we can see about some more extensive medical treatment – I dunno if the hospitals are in our patch of preserved time – but I'm sure the lab has better resources than we do."

McDougal assured them that the lab did have some good first-aid supplies, and that once they got back, he'd see to helping tend the wounded. 'Finally,' Joe thought. 'About time you did something of use!'

Frank and Joe shared the backseat of the pink Hummer and said nothing as the vehicle pulled away from the shattered ground. They leaned exhaustedly against one another, and Joe had nearly fallen asleep by the time the vehicle stopped, and Captain Thompson woke him with her voice. "Time to wake, Joe...we're here."

The first order of business was to get everyone as well-tended as they could. No one's injuries were critical, but Frank's and the female scientist's were serious enough. Still, neither of them wanted to go rest somewhere while the others worked on fixing their problem.

Next, Thompson and McDougal got into the food stores of the lab and made a quick meal for everyone, for they were all extremely hungry after their adventure. Joe was glad of the food; he felt far better once he got a hamburger into his gut.

"All right," said McDougal quietly once everyone had been fed. "There is a safe way to destroy...the black hole." Joe felt sorry for the man, even now, for it was clear these were the most difficult words the man had ever spoken. "Even real black holes don't last forever. All that energy spinning around eventually begins to spin itself out, and it just...fades. And when we made this...we also had designed a method for spinning it out."

"It only takes a few moments," added the wounded female. "Well actually about a half hour. But not long, either way."

That sounded just fine to Joe! He had had enough of weird science and land-based astronomy! "Well then, let's get this over with, huh?" he said tiredly. "Because I'd _really_ love to get home."

McDougal nodded unhappily and stood from his chair. "Follow me."

---

Five minutes later, all of them once again clustered around the miniature black hole, peering inside as the male scientist went to one of the computers and began punching in commands. "He's altering the magnets and air pressure," explained the female scientist. She was leaning heavily on a nearby supplies cabinet, watching with weary eyes. "So instead of holding it in place, it sorta pulls on the edges, spinning it around, slowly taking its substance. It looks like a slow process, but it's so tiny that it doesn't take very long this way at all."

Joe watched with only vague interest; at that point he just wanted the whole, stupid thing to be over. Adventure was one thing, but he had had enough of this particular journey. McDougal stood nearby, watching unhappily. For fifteen minutes he stared, his eyes bright, looking as if he might cry. Finally, it happened – Joe should have suspected it might – the man cried out and lunged for his colleague at the computer.

"No!" cried McDougal, grabbing the man's hand and yanking him half on the floor. Joe ran over as the scientist gave a surprise squawk and tried to pull away, but McDougal was beyond all reason. When Joe tackled him, groaning with pain as he landed on his injured shoulder, McDougal began to wail as if Joe was trying to slay his firstborn child. "You can't, you can't!" McDougal wailed, fighting Joe with every bit of strength he had.

"Some help!" Joe bellowed, but help was already there. Lieutenant Morgan was there beside him, grabbing McDougal's arms and pinning him gently but firmly to the floor.

"That's enough now, doc," said the lieutenant as McDougal's colleague picked himself up off the floor.

Teeth clenched, Joe also picked himself off the floor and looked at the man. "Go on," he gritted, holding his injured shoulder tightly. Gods, it hurt! "Get this thing over with." The man nodded, looking shaken, and sat back down.

For the next ten minutes, McDougal wept, and Lieutenant Morgan didn't let go of him. Everyone else was silent, Joe and Frank shoulder to shoulder, and the others watching the little black hole.

When it happened, Joe scarcely knew it. He felt only one thing, a split-second of intense nausea...and then blackness.

---

Joe stopped in his tracks, blinking, and grunted as Frank collided with him from behind. Joe grimaced in pain, a phantom ache shooting from his right shoulder, but he couldn't explain it. He hadn't hurt himself in football now in ages, and nor had he and Frank had any difficult cases of late.

Stopped in the middle of the short hallway that separated the kitchen from the living room, Joe simply stood, feeling utterly bewildered. Had something happened? He looked down at the CD in his hands, a CD he had just gotten, and intended to listen to once he got up to his room.

"Uh, Joe? Had you any intentions of moving any time soon?" Frank's voice, both amused and exasperated at the same time.

Joe turned around dazedly and moved aside with a mumbled apology. Something _had_ happened! Frank couldn't feel it, but Joe did, having always been the more sensitive of the two when it came to hunches and instinct. But what? Already the phantom pain in his shoulder faded, and he could not remember what had stopped him in his tracks. But it _had_ been something!

But Frank did not move on just yet. "You all right, Joe?" he asked, real concern in his voice.

Joe shook his head violently, hoping to clear the heebie-jeebies out of it. "Yeah, I'm okay, Frank," he said with a laugh. "Goose walked over my grave, I guess."

Frank chuckled and clapped Joe on the shoulder, then walked on into the living room. Their father called that the news would be on soon, but Joe was not the slightest bit interested. He only stood in the hallway for a few moments before finally shaking his head and taking in a big breath of air. When he'd held it for about ten seconds, he let it out again, feeling a little better. Whatever it was had passed, and now he had a CD to listen to. Shrugging he headed up the stairs.

"Hey, Joe!" Frank, calling him back. With a strange feeling of deja-vu, Joe came back down to see what Frank was watching; it was some sort of news report about black holes. And for some reason it left Joe feeling cold by the time it was over with, especially when their dad said they'd be taking a case regarding a missing person from the same lab that was featured in the news report.

Normally Joe liked creepy things, but this was more than creepy. This was a warning sign that their lives could be in danger. But then...when were their lives _not_ in danger on a case? And so when their father asked if they were interested, Joe said that he was. But he never got it out of his head, that something was not quite right.

The case itself was a snap. The missing person had not been kidnapped or murdered, he had simply overreacted to a very small incident and hidden out in a hotel for two days, without making contact with the people from his lab. No bullets, no assassins, no car chases... In fact the man, a scientist named Hiram McDougal, was grateful the boys had found him. And once the boys had contacted McDougal's lab and told them what was going on, they were able to make their way home.

And so, hours later, Frank and Joe were stuck at the Omaha airport, Eppley Airfield, waiting out a vicious thunderstorm. Joe had the crazy notion at one point that the storm would _not_ end, and that they would be stuck there forever...but of course that was ridiculous. In fact, almost as he had the thought, a radio report from someone's Walkman announced that the thunderstorm warnings had been canceled.

"Thank goodness," Joe murmured, looking uneasily out at the diminishing rain.

Frank looked at him steadily from the chair next to him, looking extremely worried. "Joe...are you sure you're okay? You've acting really weird this entire case...almost since we first saw the news report. You're not getting sick or something are you?"

Joe took a deep breath and turned to face his brother. "I dunno, Frank,' he said. "It's just...this weird feeling. Like something was going really, really wrong. But I couldn't tell you what, or where it came from." He hissed out his frustration and clenched his fist. "I _hate_ that!"

Frank frowned, unsure of how to reply. Joe knew his brother respected his feelings, but normally Joe was at least able to describe them or explain them a little better. Finally Frank only shook his head. "Well, I guess we just keep a watch, make sure we don't let our guards down. We'll be home in a few hours."

That was true! It was a thought that cheered Joe immensely, because the feeling just wouldn't quit. The feeling that they would never get home again. When the captain of their flight, a woman named Jennifer Thompson, came out to apologize for the delay, Joe felt his heart just about leap out of his throat. "1966," he murmured, though he had no idea whatsoever why. "They were from 1966, and they were shocked that there was a woman pilot..."

Frank looked more worried than ever. "Who are you talking about?"

But Joe could only shake his head; whatever instinct had made him murmur the words was fleeting, and Joe couldn't hold onto the thought, no matter how hard he tried. "I don't know, Frank," he said, suddenly feeling very tired. "I have no clue."

The feeling didn't abate any time soon. Not even when they announced over the loudspeaker that their flight would be leaving in a half hour did he relax, nor when he and Frank were sitting in the uncomfortable airplane seats, flying several thousand feet above the ground. Only when the plane began to approach New York did the feeling begin to ease, letting up completely once he and Frank were safely in the terminal.

Joe suddenly laughed aloud, making Frank blink tiredly and look at him. The older boy smiled. "Better?" he asked.

"Definitely...definitely better. Guess it was just the heebie-jeebies. Come on, let's get the blazes home. I could use about eight hours of sleep."

Fenton was there to meet the boys, waiting for them in the main terminal, and after hugging their father, the boys began to tell them of the case. "Easy," said Frank, describing how they'd only had to question half a dozen people before finding McDougal. "He just got paranoid, is all. But you might wanna check out that lab in Missouri, after all. They might have been a little...overeager in their offer to McDougal."

"I'll do that, boys," said Fenton as he steered the car onto their street. " And good job. Easy or not, you got the job done. Now get some sleep. We'll see tomorrow what we can find out."

Neither boy protested as the car pulled into the garage, and they both stumbled out of the vehicle. Joe grumbled that he felt like an extra in Night of the Living Dead, which had both Frank and Fenton laughing. Joe even laughed himself. It was pathetic, but true! He intended to sleep for an entire day.

---

The next morning, Fenton greeted them at the breakfast tale with the news that the Missouri lab had checked out clean, and that Fenton had talked to the man responsible for McDougal's paranoia. "Didn't know a thing about it," said Fenton with a chuckle, biting into an omelet. "In fact he was surprised he'd intimidated McDougal at all. Seemed like a nice man to me, and both he and his lab checked out just fine. Let's hope that McDougal doesn't get any more offers to share his work – we might get called in to unearth a murder plot or something equally dramatic."

Frank chuckled, and Joe rolled his eyes. But he was glad that the whole thing was over, anyway.

That night, the Hardys all sat in the living room, watching the evening news. Mid-America Physics and Astronomy was featured again, this time with a report that chased away the last traces of Joe's heebie-jeebies. Cori Fletcher was back on the screen, the scientist who had first talked about black holes to the newscaster's audience. "Yes, we have shut down the black hole project until further notice."

"And why is that?" asked the reporter.

"Well, as you might know, a violent thunderstorm came through the area last night, and there were some funnel clouds sighted. None actually touched our facility, but we had some very...strange readings on our sensors. We realized that if something unexpected were to happen, we wouldn't be able to predict the results. And storms are largely unpredictable. And of course our work is also very unpredictable to begin with. So...until we're able to find out more about black holes, we've decided to put the project on hold."

Joe could not explain the soaring relief that spread through him when he heard that. He slumped on the couch with a deep sigh. Yes. That was best. Shut down the project before something horrible happened. Joe had a sudden, nightmare image of a lightning bolt skewering a little black hole (which looked in his vision like the black hole from that old Disney movie), and spreading destruction in an ever-widening radius. He shivered at the vision, shaking his head.

Finally he laughed. After all, what were the odds?


End file.
